A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

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A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by SolarpunkFan »

SETI Institute
Well, it might be aliens. Then again, in the tradition of Pogo it might just be us, led astray by our own technology.

A story in Britain’s Guardian newspaper today (December 18) reports that astronomers with the Breakthrough Listen Project – the comprehensive radio SETI search being run out of the University of California at Berkeley – has detected radio emissions from the direction of Proxima Centauri. That’s the closest star system to us, a mere 4.2 light-years away, and it’s known to be accompanied by at least two planets.

The signal was picked up by the Parkes 210-foot radio telescope in sheep country about 190 miles inland from Sydney, Australia. Because Proxima Centauri is only visible in the southern sky, you need a “down under” telescope to observe it.

But does this mean that SETI researchers have finally stumbled upon their holy grail, a radio emission that could only come from a deliberately constructed transmitter on another world? It’s possible, of course. But the Breakthrough Listen folk are careful not to indulge in any chest beating until the signal is subjected to additional observations.

So, what are the possible implications of this finding? Let us count the ways:

To begin, the signal apparently varies slightly in frequency, wobbling up and down the radio dial. So it’s not coming from an antenna bolted to the ground here on Earth. That immediately makes it non-terrestrial by definition, but still doesn’t certify it as alien.

Indeed, it just might be a telemetry signal from an orbiting satellite. The orbital motion of these satellites cause their transmissions to rise and fall in frequency, after all. And while you might think that the chances of accidentally tuning in a satellite are not great, you should think again. There are more than 2,700 functioning satellites buzzing our planet, providing information on the weather, imagery for Google Earth, GPS signals for navigation, and high-resolution photos for the military, just to name a few. This flood of information from hardware a few hundred miles above our heads is obviously important for a high-tech lifestyle, but it jams a lot of the radio spectrum. SETI scientists are trying to find a needle in a pile of pins.

But if it’s not a satellite signal, what else might it be? It’s possible that the signal is actually coming from something behind Proxima Centauri that just happens to line up with it. There’s an example of this coming your way next week, when Jupiter will seem to be intruding upon Saturn’s personal space as the two planets get close in the evening sky. On December 21, their separation will be only 6 arcmin, or about the width of a dime held at 20 feet. But of course Jupiter and Saturn won’t actually be close. You’d find 500 million miles of uninteresting space behind Jupiter before you encountered the ring thing. They just appear to line up.

So maybe that’s what’s going on: the signal’s not coming from Proxima Centauri, but from something else far beyond it. Maybe, but that would still be extremely interesting, as natural radio signals – the type produced by quasars, pulsars, and many other members of the cosmic bestiary – are not narrow-band. They’re not confined to a small range of frequencies, and this signal might be.

Yet another participant in this lineup is the possibility that what’s been found are merely natural radio emissions from a world having a strong magnetic field. In our own solar system, Jupiter’s noisy radio bursts have been studied for many decades. Maybe there’s such a beefy, magnetically laced planet orbiting Proxima Centauri?

That may seem plausible, but if you were to transport Jupiter to the distance of Proxima, its cacophonous outbursts would be roughly a thousand times weaker than the faintest signal our radio telescopes can detect. In other words, this explanation for the detection depends on there being an extraordinarily noisy world orbiting Proxima Centauri. Not impossible, but a bit unlikely.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that the signal is really, really local. A microwave oven in the break room of the Parkes radio telescope caused considerable consternation five years ago when it produced signals that, at first, suggested that something remarkable was happening in the distant cosmos. In fact, it was just someone heating up lunch.

So, given even this short laundry list, we see that there are several possible explanations for the signal that are, regrettably, rather prosaic. Yes, as long as we still don’t know, we should continue to consider the alien hypothesis viable. After all, any SETI detection is going to be dicey when we first make it … there will be plenty of calls for restraint intended to pacify the all-too-eager. But it’s reasonable to expect that someday one of these suspicious signals will, indeed, be the sought-after proof of intelligence on another world.

Caution is often a good idea, but one must be careful not to toss the baby with the bathwater. After all, this baby could change our concept of the cosmos.
An aside: I had the misfortune of learning of this story today, after reading Blindsight's TV Tropes page last night. Lucky me. :banghead:
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Crossroads Inc. »

I'll be interested if its on par with the "WOW" singal.... and it can be detected more than once
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Broomstick »

SolarpunkFan wrote: 2021-03-06 12:22pm An aside: I had the misfortune of learning of this story today, after reading Blindsight's TV Tropes page last night. Lucky me. :banghead:
I thought it was a really good novel. Not happy, not pleasant, not even always enjoyable... but a good, solid, hard-SF story. And creepy as hell.

As for what that signal really is.... I hope it's more interesting than someone heating up their lunch. But not too interesting, if you know what I mean.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Solauren »

Personally, I'm not sure if I'd prefer a discovery of technologically capable aliens, or a discover of evidence of biology at this point.

On that one hand, aliens might be able to give us a 'tech boost'. (Note: No doing DNA splicing they suggest).
On the other, are we ready, as a society to be confronted with proof of technology using aliens? non-tech using alien life is going to be mind-shattering enough for alot of people. Toss in the possibility of TOS-era Klingons?
(I'm way more worried about peoples reaction, then hostile aliens invading.)
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by SolarpunkFan »

Broomstick wrote: 2021-03-06 04:19pm I thought it was a really good novel. Not happy, not pleasant, not even always enjoyable... but a good, solid, hard-SF story. And creepy as hell.
Creepy as hell indeed, and disturbingly plausible in places. Here's hoping aliens are more like Vulcans and less like the Scramblers. Especially if what's at Proxima Centauri is intelligent...

[I read the novel a long time ago. All I did at TVT was brush up on things. Not a good idea before reading this news.]
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Solauren »

Something I just thought of - could it be one of our signals that bounced off something in the Proxima Centauri system? Say a radio burst from a satelite that was mis-aimed?
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by bilateralrope »

How many transmitters do we have that are powerful enough to still be detectable after travelling 8+ light years ?

Though it could have bounced off something much closer.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Jub »

Solauren wrote: 2021-03-07 09:15pm Something I just thought of - could it be one of our signals that bounced off something in the Proxima Centauri system? Say a radio burst from a satelite that was mis-aimed?
That would be one hell of a fluke given you'd need to bounce it off of something that focused it back or else the inverse square law and losses from hitting something and bouncing would attenuate the signal to near nothing.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by LadyTevar »

Jub wrote: 2021-03-07 10:58pm
Solauren wrote: 2021-03-07 09:15pm Something I just thought of - could it be one of our signals that bounced off something in the Proxima Centauri system? Say a radio burst from a satelite that was mis-aimed?
That would be one hell of a fluke given you'd need to bounce it off of something that focused it back or else the inverse square law and losses from hitting something and bouncing would attenuate the signal to near nothing.
Question:
ARE we sending out signals in that direction? Or are we just 'listening' to what's out there?
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

IIRC, the only signal we've intentionally sent out of the solar system in any direction was the one sent at M13 by (I think) SETI, but I'd be stunned if the signal gets there in a readable fashion given it's several thousand light years away.

Unintentionally broadcasting? I'd say almost certainly yes, but I'd be frankly amazed if any of them could be picked up much past Neptune's orbit, never mind Proxima.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by bilateralrope »

Are you talking about the Arecibo message, or when Arecibo was used to send approximately 10,000 twitter messages back at where the Wow! signal came from ?

Arecibo was a planetary radar installation, which means it was the strongest transmitter we built. By a large margin. I'm not familiar enough with the position of stars, and objects in our solar system, to take a guess as to how likely it was trying to image something that was in roughly the same direction as Proxima. I'm also not sure if even it would be powerful enough for a signal to be detectable at 4 light years. Let alone over 8.

Then there is the issue of focusing the return signal to hit Earth. A bounced signal from humanity seems very unlikely. Especially since the article talks about the frequency wobbling, which means there was some duration to it.

An alien signal would raise the question: Why did they want to make a transmission that powerful ?
Not "can they do it" but "why would they want to ?"
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Broomstick »

Can't know for sure, but I do hope it's more along the lines of "hello? Is anyone else out there? Can we be friends?" as opposed to some of the more upsetting alternatives....
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

bilateralrope wrote: 2021-03-08 07:41pm Are you talking about the Arecibo message, or when Arecibo was used to send approximately 10,000 twitter messages back at where the Wow! signal came from ?

Arecibo was a planetary radar installation, which means it was the strongest transmitter we built. By a large margin. I'm not familiar enough with the position of stars, and objects in our solar system, to take a guess as to how likely it was trying to image something that was in roughly the same direction as Proxima. I'm also not sure if even it would be powerful enough for a signal to be detectable at 4 light years. Let alone over 8.

Then there is the issue of focusing the return signal to hit Earth. A bounced signal from humanity seems very unlikely. Especially since the article talks about the frequency wobbling, which means there was some duration to it.

An alien signal would raise the question: Why did they want to make a transmission that powerful ?
Not "can they do it" but "why would they want to ?"
I meant the Arecibo message in 1974, aimed at M13 in Hercules, a northern constellation (and a rather pretty one) and a good quarter/third of the way across the sky from Centaurus. The Wow signal response was aaimed back at the probable location in Sagittarius, which is still a long way from Centaurus.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by SolarpunkFan »

IIRC insofar as radio transmissions, our normal "chatter" outshines the Sun at radio wavelengths. But the information is completely jumbled by the time they reach 2 light years from Earth.

As for the deliberate messages we've sent? Not a clue.
Solauren wrote: 2021-03-06 06:16pm On that one hand, aliens might be able to give us a 'tech boost'. (Note: No doing DNA splicing they suggest).
I find that difficult to believe. We're talking about something that hasn't even evolved on this planet. The idea that its sense of ethics/morality, much less it's behavior, would make any sense to us (or vice versa) is exceptionally slim.

Just look at all the "alien" intelligences in the animal kingdom, and they've evolved on the same planet as us.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by LadyTevar »

Broomstick wrote: 2021-03-08 08:30pm Can't know for sure, but I do hope it's more along the lines of "hello? Is anyone else out there? Can we be friends?" as opposed to some of the more upsetting alternatives....
It might be their equivalent of our first Radio Broadcasts. Aren't our TV and Radio signals supposedly floating around out there?
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Batman »

Out there, definitely. Strong enough to be detected leave alone deciphered? Highly dubious. Those were meant for terrestrial consumption and interstellar distances mean signal intensity drops something fierce
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Solauren »

LadyTevar wrote: 2021-03-10 09:39pm
Broomstick wrote: 2021-03-08 08:30pm Can't know for sure, but I do hope it's more along the lines of "hello? Is anyone else out there? Can we be friends?" as opposed to some of the more upsetting alternatives....
It might be their equivalent of our first Radio Broadcasts. Aren't our TV and Radio signals supposedly floating around out there?
Our first broadcasts are way past that. Right now, they'd be seeing the 2016 POTUS elections if they could detect them.

Huh, maybe that was them transmitting laughter at us.....
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by bilateralrope »

SolarpunkFan wrote: 2021-03-10 07:16pm IIRC insofar as radio transmissions, our normal "chatter" outshines the Sun at radio wavelengths. But the information is completely jumbled by the time they reach 2 light years from Earth.
So, how far away from Earth could a sun-like star be while still being visible in radio wavelengths ?
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

bilateralrope wrote: 2021-03-11 01:21am
SolarpunkFan wrote: 2021-03-10 07:16pm IIRC insofar as radio transmissions, our normal "chatter" outshines the Sun at radio wavelengths. But the information is completely jumbled by the time they reach 2 light years from Earth.
So, how far away from Earth could a sun-like star be while still being visible in radio wavelengths ?
I'm not sure exactly, but it'd be a good long way. Signals can be detected from a great distance, but it will mostly be meaningless noise. It's not that terrestrial signals can't be observed at multi-light-year distances, it's that you can't turn them into something recogniseable.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by SolarpunkFan »

Eternal_Freedom wrote: 2021-03-11 12:12pm I'm not sure exactly, but it'd be a good long way. Signals can be detected from a great distance, but it will mostly be meaningless noise. It's not that terrestrial signals can't be observed at multi-light-year distances, it's that you can't turn them into something recogniseable.
Though now I'm imagining a minor crisis in some alien civilization's astrophysics community.

A.1: "This star has suddenly brightened in the radio spectrum!"

A.2: "Impossible! I thought we had the physics of stellar evolution nailed?!"

A.1: "Apparently not!"

:lol:
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by Sky Captain »

Hmm, interesting question would be if there were civilization like ours at Proxima Centauri would we be able to detect their radio noise as something above background and if we could detect it would that be enough to conclude it is artificial instead just some weird natural phenomena.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by bilateralrope »

A new piece of information on how far away our signals are detectable. I listen to a podcast called the Astronomy Cast. In episode 600 they stated that the Square Kilometre Array will be able to detect radio leakage from our airports at 100 light years. First Light for the SKA is currently scheduled for 2027.

Do we have any regular outgoing transmissions that are stronger than airport radar ?
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by LaCroix »

On the Radio appliance spectrum, Radar is pretty high up on the detectable output, as it is a directed emission.
The even a relatively "small" forward radar of an aircraft can literally microwave things nearby...

So an airport radar is pretty much the equivalent of a lighthouse, or a search light beam, or a laser for certain types of military targeting radars.

If you are talking RADIO - well - Airport also do have pretty powerful equipment in that regard - the military certainly has even better stuff, but that is designed to be sneaky, so less detectable.
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Re: A Signal from Proxima Centauri?

Post by bilateralrope »

I'm guessing they were referring to radar, as that's the strongest transmissions airports are putting out. The strongest transmissions humans are putting out constantly and in all directions.

So the only transmissions we are putting out in all directions are only detectable out to 100ly. And only with a radio telescope array that isn't online yet.

And since the strength of radar transmissions is based on what the radar is intended to detect, I can't see alien civilizations putting out stronger signals.
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