According to a report by The Guardian, scientists on the Breakthrough Listen project, which is looking for aliens, are investigating a signal that may have come from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.
Why it’s important: If confirmed as a true sign of life, it would be tremendously exciting. Still, in all likelihood, the radio signal, which is in 2019, has a much more mundane origin story.
What is happening: According to The Guardian, scientists with Breakthrough picked up a “narrow beam of radio waves” during observations with the Australian Parkes telescope in May and April 2019.
- These narrow beams are of particular interest because they look like the type of radio waves that humans send into the universe, but this also makes it more difficult to analyze whether a signal like this is of human or alien origin.
- The scientists behind the discovery have been unable to find an obvious explanation for the signal and are now making follow-up observations to try to compile it.
- “The most obvious thing they have to do is go back and use Parkes or another observatory with a similar sensitivity and look back,” Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute, who is not involved in the new research, told me.
What to see: It is still possible that this signal was emitted by some human cause that has not yet been found.
- O, even the signal could come from some other cosmic source with properties that have not yet been fixed.
- What follows: These possibilities will require follow-up observations to give scientists a good idea of what the signal actually produced.
Be smart: Scientists have not yet published their full findings, and much analysis and confirmation will still be needed to see if the signal is truly alien.In depth: Alien hunters discover a mysterious sign of Proxima Centauri (Scientific American)