Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Is SETI on to something?
If you've been looking at tech news today, you're probably aware of a breaking story that SETI researchers have found an "interesting signal" which cannot be attributed to the usual signal suspects. So far. The story first broke in the New Scientist, but this link seems to be down for now. This piece from the Scotsman was the next best I could find.
Unexplained radio signals had been detected twice by the same telescope in these areas and scientists were trying to confirm the findings. It may sound fanciful, but a report in the journal NewScientist reveals how the team has now finished analysing the data, and all the signals seem to have disappeared - except for one which has got stronger. Detected on three separate occasions, the signal is "an enigma", say researchers.
So far, explanations have included conjecture that it could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon, or may even be something far more pedestrian, such as an artefact on the telescope itself interfering with measurements. But the astronomy team says that it also happens to be the best candidate yet for a contact by intelligent aliens in the six-year history of the SETI@home project, which uses programmes running as screen-savers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through signals picked up by the Arecibo telescope.
Named SHGb02+14a, the possible alien communication has a frequency of about 1420 megahertz - one of the main frequencies at which hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, readily absorbs and emits energy. The unexplained signal appears to be emanating from a point between the constellations of Pisces and Aries, where there is no obvious star or planetary system within 1,000 light years, and the transmission is also very faint. So far, the telescope has managed to pick up the signal for only about a minute in total, which is not sufficient for astronomers to analyse it fully.
Skeptics abound, including SETI folks.
Dr Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Ed: of LGM1 fame), of the University of Bath, said: "It may be a natural phenomenon of a previously undreamed-of kind - like I stumbled over." Paul Horowitz, a Harvard University astronomer who looks for alien signals using optical telescopes, believes that the drift in the signal makes it "fishy". David Anderson, the director of the SETI@home project, is also sceptical but curious about the signal. He told NewScientist: "It is unlikely to be real, but we will definitely continue to observe it."
The SETI Institute is maintaining a studied (and understandable) silence.
Unexplained radio signals had been detected twice by the same telescope in these areas and scientists were trying to confirm the findings. It may sound fanciful, but a report in the journal NewScientist reveals how the team has now finished analysing the data, and all the signals seem to have disappeared - except for one which has got stronger. Detected on three separate occasions, the signal is "an enigma", say researchers.
So far, explanations have included conjecture that it could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon, or may even be something far more pedestrian, such as an artefact on the telescope itself interfering with measurements. But the astronomy team says that it also happens to be the best candidate yet for a contact by intelligent aliens in the six-year history of the SETI@home project, which uses programmes running as screen-savers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through signals picked up by the Arecibo telescope.
Named SHGb02+14a, the possible alien communication has a frequency of about 1420 megahertz - one of the main frequencies at which hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, readily absorbs and emits energy. The unexplained signal appears to be emanating from a point between the constellations of Pisces and Aries, where there is no obvious star or planetary system within 1,000 light years, and the transmission is also very faint. So far, the telescope has managed to pick up the signal for only about a minute in total, which is not sufficient for astronomers to analyse it fully.
Skeptics abound, including SETI folks.
Dr Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Ed: of LGM1 fame), of the University of Bath, said: "It may be a natural phenomenon of a previously undreamed-of kind - like I stumbled over." Paul Horowitz, a Harvard University astronomer who looks for alien signals using optical telescopes, believes that the drift in the signal makes it "fishy". David Anderson, the director of the SETI@home project, is also sceptical but curious about the signal. He told NewScientist: "It is unlikely to be real, but we will definitely continue to observe it."
The SETI Institute is maintaining a studied (and understandable) silence.
