Astronomers, especially the American project Breakthrough Listen, which is serious about searching for extraterrestrial civilizations, believe that the mysterious radio signal, which may have been a sign that “we are not alone in space” and which was believed to come from the region of Proxima Centauri , ultimately has an earthly origin.
–
And that it probably originated only as a “product of interference from human technology.”
–
| Proxima Centauri (also Alpha Centauri C) is a star 4.22 light-years from Earth, so it is the closest star to the solar system. It is a small red dwarf in the constellation Centaurus, at an angular distance of about 2 ° from the brightest star in the constellation, Alpha Centauri. The system has two confirmed planets, Proxim b and Proxim c. |
—
The signal was detected during one approximately 30-hour observation in April and May 2019 using the Parkes telescope at an observatory in Australia, at a frequency of 980 MHz. The signal designated BLC1 was interesting for such a narrow emission range that it could not be explained by any known physical phenomenon.
–
Repeated rotation of the telescope, according to last year’s information, proved that the signal source in the area of Proximy Centauri, resp. planets (Proxima bac) that orbit it, shifted. In addition, one of them is in the so-called habitable zone, ie a suitable distance from the star for the probable origin of life.
–
Last December, the first “secret” reports had just appeared that astronomers had intercepted a radio signal coming from the star Proxima Centauri during spring 2019 observations. Its origin was not obvious and a lot of speculation arose, among them about the artificial origin of the signal.
–
However, analysis of data from the Parkes Telescope, which captured the signal, showed that it was related to other signals at other frequencies. And these related signals were clearly coming from Earth, Phys.org explained now.
–
It looked like a message from intelligent beings
The signal never reappeared during subsequent Proximy Centauri “scans.” The reason, according to two new studies published on October 25 this year in the journal Nature Astronomy, is probably that the signal did not come from Proxima Centauri at all, adds the Live Science server.
–
“We are ready to announce that BLC1 is unfortunately not a signal of intelligent life outside Earth. Rather, it is radio interference that only exactly mimics the type of signal we were looking for, ”say the scientists involved themselves. According to them, the captured emission of radio waves first corresponded to the expected form of a message from intelligent – but alien – beings.
–
Specifically, Sofia Sheikh of the Breakthrough Listen team looked at the signal dataset and found that it was distributed at “regular frequency intervals.” Using filtering and alternating focus of the telescope on a star, the researchers eventually found 5,160 possible candidates for “foreign” signals.
–
After the elimination of other signals, one and the main one appeared – BLC1, which, according to Space.com, lasted for more than two hours. But even that is most likely just the case with human technology.
–
“Taken together, this evidence suggests that the signal is only the effects of human technology, even though we have not been able to identify its specific source,” Sheikh said in The Daily Mail.
–
Last year, on condition of anonymity, one of the project’s experts told the Guardian: “He is the most promising candidate (for a signal from extraterrestrial beings) since the discovery of the Wow signal in the 1970s.”
–
“The signal came from a direction where there is a confirmed planet that could be habitable, but everything else is speculation. It can also be a signal created by human activity. Everything still needs to be checked. Only after repeated detection and exclusion of all other signal generators can we speculate on a non-natural origin, “Petr Kabáth from the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic told Novinka at the time.
–
And “human activity”, ie artificial but not extraterrestrial origin, is therefore the final answer for the time being.
—
