(Wikimedia Commons)
Astronomers from the Breakthrough Listen project have determined that the BLC1 artificial radio candidate discovered two years ago, which was believed to have come from an area near Proxima Centauri, is in fact anthropogenic.
This conclusion was made after careful analysis of the signal characteristics.
The Breakthrough Listen program started in 2015 and searches for possible signals of artificial origin and emanating from other stellar systems using ground-based optical and radio telescopes.
One of the targets that scientists is the closest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf, around which two exoplanets revolve.
Observations were carried out in the frequency range from 700 megahertz to 4 gigahertz using the Parkes radio telescope.
In December last year, there were reports that Breakthrough Listen in April and May 2019 recorded a narrowband signal at 982 megahertz
At the time it was thought that it presumably came from an exoplanet near Proxima Centauri.
It received the designation BLC1 (Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1), was observed for about 5 hours, had characteristics similar to those expected from the technosignature, and was not subsequently registered.
Nevertheless, almost immediately after the discovery of the signal, scientists had doubts about its alien nature.
Now, a group of astronomers led by Shane Smith from the University of California at Berkeley published the results of an analysis of the BLC1 parameters
The purpose of the analysis was to confirm or deny the signal's status as a potential radio engineering signature.
Scientists concluded that, despite the fact that BLC1 was observed only in the direction of Proxima Centauri and cannot be a signal from an aircraft or a near-earth satellite, it does not fit the criteria of technosignature.
Instead, it is the result of the intermodulation of many human-made interference sources.
Nevertheless, according to scientists, observations of Proxima within the framework of the project should be continued
Those observations include ranges of electromagnetic waves, such as optical, infrared or X-ray.
Source:
- The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/a-mysterious-signal-looked-like-a-sign-of-alien-technology-but-it-turned-out-to-be-radio-interference-170548
- Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01479-w
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