You are not logged in to Prodigits. Please register or login.

Subject: A strange signal
Replies: 8 Views: 421

shadow27 31.01.21 - 03:31pm
Do do do doo do do do dooo


The 64-meter Parkes radio telescope in Australia picked up the faint signal in April and May 2019 while observing Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf 4.25 light-years from Earth. Notably, this feeble star has at least two planets, one of which is a super-Earth with at least 1.17 Earth masses that orbits in the stars habitable zone - the region around a star where a planet with the right conditions could host liquid water on its surface.

Astronomers were using Parkes to catch radio emission from powerful flares shooting off the star. But the 100 million dollar Breakthrough Listen project, the world's most advanced SETI endeavor, was piggybacking on the observations to simultaneously search for alien signals. * +

shadow27 31.01.21 - 03:32pm
In late October 2020, Breakthrough Listen intern Shane Smith, an undergraduate at Hil.l's dale College, found a narrowband transmission at a frequency of 982.002 megahertz - in a portion of the radio spectrum rarely used by human-made transmitters - buried in the data.

Although the press reports are a bit unclear on exactly how and when Parkes detected the signal, it apparently showed up during five 30-minute periods over several days, all while the telescope was pointing directly at Proxima. Notably, when the telescope was turned away from the star, the signal vanished. Ultimately, the signal's origin appears tightly constrained within a 16'-wide circle - roughly half the size of the Full Moon -around Proxima Centauri on the sky. * +

shadow27 31.01.21 - 03:35pm
Breakthrough Listen employs software filters that reject the cacophony of signals originating from Earth or Earth-orbiting satellites to isolate those coming from deep space. But this transmission was unlike anything the project has previously encountered. Team leader Andrew Siemion told Scientific American, ''It has some particular properties that caused it to pass many of our checks, and we cannot yet explain it.'' * +

shadow27 31.01.21 - 03:38pm
On the off chance that BLC-1 turns out to be the real deal, it would raise the question of whether humanity should send a reply - something within our current means. Our message could potentially stimulate a response in less than a decade, starting an interstellar dialogue well within the lifetimes of most people alive today. Thats an incredibly exciting prospect.

But this possibility also raises concerning questions about our conversation partners: Who are they? What are their motives? Do they pose a threat? Technologically advanced beings at Proxima Centauri could reach Earth in a few decades if they can traverse interstellar space at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. After all, Breakthrough Initiatives is planning just such a venture with its Starshot project, which plans to use a powerful laser to accelerate about a thousand ultra-lightweight, centimeter-sized craft attached to light sails. Such craft can theoretically attain 15 to 20 percent the speed of light, meaning they could reach the Proxima system in 20 to 30 years. * +

shadow27 31.01.21 - 03:39pm
And what would such a nearby alien civilization know about us?

''I find it difficult to believe that a technological civilization on Proxima Centauri would not know about life on Earth,'' says astrobiologist Jacob Haqq-Misra of the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. ''The only way they would not know is if they are almost exactly at our present-day level of technology, so that we are discovering them the same time they are discovering us. This is generally unlikely, because even a thousand-year difference between our two civilizations - a short time in astronomy - would lead to drastic differences in our detection capabilities.'' * +

shadow27 31.01.21 - 03:40pm
If BLC-1 is simply - as is most likely - human interference, then it's no big deal, perhaps just a bit of an embarrassment to whomever leaked the story to The Guardian. But if BLC-1 is a bona fide extraterrestrial signal, it could change the course of world history. An alien radio transmitter just 4.25 light-years from Earth would be a game changer. No doubt this is why the discovery team has gone silent and is working hard to get its analysis right. * +

shadow27 31.01.21 - 03:42pm
There may not be a civilization there.. it could be a beacon or some type of probe.. anything is possible. * +

ogdenz 31.01.21 - 04:44pm
Didn't The Police release a single with that title circa 1980? * +

+ go to page 1-2
+ my page
+ functions
3 search
4 submit a reply
7 last page
+ bookmark
8 General Chat Forum
9 Forum Index

Custom Search