Decoding Mysterious Signals from Earth’s Closest Exoplanet

Mysterious signals from exoplanets – planets outside the Solar System – closest to Earth have been decoded by planet hunters.

This mysterious cosmic signal  was obtained by Breakthrough Listen scientists when observing Proxima Centauri with a high-power telescope. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star in the constellation Sagittarius that is more than 4 light years from Earth and has 2 exoplanets orbiting it.

However, scientists conclude that the possible mysterious alien radio signal from Proxima Centauri is likely human technological intervention, an echo from Earth.

“Evidence suggests signal interference from human technology, although we cannot identify its specific source,” explained scientist Sofia Sheikh of the Breakthrough Listen team.

The mysterious signal was first discovered by the Breakthrough Listen project in 2020 through the Parkes telescope in Australia. The project specializes in hunting for “technosignature” alien signals such as radio waves and other evidence of alien technology.

The initiative uses the largest radio telescopes in the world to record data across wide bands of the radio spectrum in the direction of the target series of objects.

After discovering the mysterious signal closest to Earth, scientists conducted further analysis of the signal and determined that this signal was not so strange, said Andrew Siemion at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, host. Breakthrough Listen’s scientific team leader said.

“In the case of this particular candidate, our analysis shows that it is highly unlikely that it actually came from a source in Proxima Centauri. However, this is certainly one of the most intriguing signals yet. we see so far” – Mr. Siemion said.

Scientist Sheikh further noted that the signals have a regular repeating frequency and seem to correspond to the multifrequency in electronic oscillations commonly used in various electronic devices.

Decoding the mysterious signal source of the planet closest to Earth was published earlier this week in the journal Nature Astronomy.

After decades of searching in space , the result is still: “It’s not aliens”. However, executive director of the Breakthrough Listen initiative Pete Worden shared: “While we cannot conclude the true technological signature, we are increasingly confident that we have the necessary tools to detect and authenticate these signals.” signs if they exist”.

The Parkes Telescope in Australia is one of the largest telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere. Since 2016, scientists have discovered more than 4.1 million bands of potentially important radio signals. However, upon later analysis, the majority of these bands were often emissions from human technology on Earth .