Scientists involved in an alien life research project are now investigating a mysterious radio wave signal that appears to be coming Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun.
The guardian reported the find on Friday, writing that the emission was captured during 30 hours of observations by the Parkes telescope in Australia in April and May last year.
Scientists working on the Breakthrough Listen Project have been investigating the broadcast since its detection, although the source is still unclear. However, The Guardian reported that scientists found that a change in the frequency of the beam is consistent with the movement of a planet.
An individual from the astronomy community who spoke on condition of anonymity because the work is in progress told The Guardian that the beam that appears to come from the direction of Proxima Centauri has not been seen again since l initial observation.
The source told the newspaper that the latest beam is “the first serious candidate since the show” Wow! Signal, “a radio signal picked up by the Big Ear Radio Observatory in Ohio in 1977.
Breakthrough Listen, launched in 2015 by Silicon Valley science and technology investor Yuri Milner, analyzes the million stars closest to Earth and “listens to messages from the 100 closest galaxies to ours” to find evidence of civilizations beyond the Earth ”, according to the document. a the project website.
At the project’s launch event in 2015 at the Royal Society of London, the late physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking described the research as “very important”.
“Humanity has a deep need to explore, learn, know,” said Hawking, who died in 2018 after a decades-long battle with ALS. “We are also sociable creatures. It’s important for us to know if we’re alone in the dark. “
Proxima Centauri, located 4.2 light-years from Earth, is known to have at least two planets orbiting around it. According to The Guardian, one is believed to be a gas giant, while the other is a rocky planet about 17 percent larger than Earth, known as “Proxima b.”
The planet is within the “habitable zone” of Proxima Centauri, that is, it is at the temperature level that would allow water to flow, which leads to speculation if there is life on the planet.
Despite this, a published report in The Astrophysical Journal last week by a team of Australian researchers indicated that the planets around Centauri Proxima are likely to be exposed to hazardous radiation stellar flares and plasma expulsions.
“The Earth has a very powerful planetary magnetic field that protects us from these intense explosions of solar plasma. But because Proxima Centauri is a small red dwarf star, it means that this habitable zone is very close to the star; “Mercury is for our Sun,” said in a press release, lead author Andrew Zic, who undertook the research at the University of Sydney.
“What our research shows is that this makes planets very vulnerable to the dangerous ionizing radiation that could effectively sterilize the planets,” he added.