“He’s the most promising candidate (for a signal from extraterrestrial beings) since the discovery of the Wow signal in the 1970s,” one of the Breaktrough Listen experts, who is serious about searching for extraterrestrial civilizations, told the Guardian on condition of anonymity. He raised $ 100 million for it.
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The so-called Wow signal was intercepted in 1977 as part of the SETI project by the Big Ear radio telescope in Ohio, USA. It was a narrowband radio signal that seemed to come from outside the solar system and appeared to be of artificial origin. The astronomer who first noticed the data added the English word “wow” to it. However, the signal disappeared after 72 seconds and, despite repeated efforts, was never intercepted or explained again.
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Captured repeatedly
The new BLC1 signal at 980 Mhz is interesting for such a narrow emission range that it cannot be explained by any known physical phenomenon.
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In addition, repeated rotation of the telescope has shown that the signal source in the region of Proxima Centauri or the planets orbiting it has shifted. The shift corresponded to the motion of the planets. 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.
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Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, a cold, low-brightness star just 4.2 light-years from Earth.
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Artistic representation of the surface of the planet Proxima Centauri b
Photo: Profimedia.cz
“The signal came from a direction where there is a confirmed planet that could be habitable, but everything else is guesswork. 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 is it possible to speculate on a non-natural origin, “Petr Kabáth from the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic told Novinky.
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Although the aliens are in the last place in the ranking of the explained explanations, everyone in the Breaktrough Listen project hopes that they are.
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It remains to exclude other possible agents. And the most likely one is a man. Specifically, radio transmissions from Earth, satellites or space probes. Another possibility is the natural origin of the signal from outer space. The catch is that no object known to astronomers or a phenomenon sends similar signals.
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