Alien Hunters Discover Mysterious Signal from Proxima Centauri | Hacker News Reader

Alien Hunters Discover Mysterious Signal from Proxima Centauri

scientificamerican.com

80 pointsBruceEel37 comments

More about the frequency drift:

"The positive drift rate actually to me argues in favor of it being extrasolar technology, because that implies it is significantly accelerating with respect to the barycentric frame."

https://twitter.com/Astro_Wright/status/1340119074756550656?...

Any radio / power transmission experts here to chime in on that 982.002 MHz frequency?

I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat here, but started wondering about the theoretical purpose of a monotonous 982.002 MHz signal. Best my both brain cells could come up with is either a - remote power transmission, or b - optimizing a signal to avoid absorption by water.

The optimal frequency studies for power transmission I saw were all for biological applications, like pacemakers and they do come in at somewhere around 1 GHz. The optimal frequency seems to be dialed in to minimize energy losses absorbed by tissue, meaning in our case, water in cells?

Remote spectroscopy must show Earth reeks of water. And water is the cheapest and most effective radiation shielding there is. Does any of that track for anyone who knows what they're talking about, because I sure don't?

Being a precise base ten integer suggests it is human derived.

982.000 MHz is the second harmonic of 491.000 MHz, which is the center of Channel 17, UHF Television. It is probably the local oscillator of a broadcast TV tower. Harmonics can be easily generated by any nonlinear process, such as amplifiers or even a rusty contact.

Or the aliens liked what we broadcast on CH17 a decade ago and are asking for more :)

Bring back Mork and Mindy.

491 is also interesting

https://primes.utm.edu/curios/page.php/491.html

But maybe 982 has something to do with a frequency that can easily travel through that part of the interstellar medium without disturbance.

There are very few details (and no DOI). Is it a continuous-waveform (carrier-only) ? "The signal bears no trace of modulation." What is the 'signal' to noise ratio? (Was it dug out of the noise?) At what rate is the frequency 'very slightly' climbing?

'Coming from a star very close to our own?' For sure? or just from that general direction?

At a 4 LY distance, given the loss in strength over that distance due to spread, the transmit power would have to be enormous. (Voyager 1 is about 10e-13 LY away, and our best scopes are needed to hear it.) If so, why invest so much energy in an un-modulated wave?

On the very slim chance it's not local (harmonic bouncing off - or eminated by our space junk), some FRB's have been observed in that range, changing (much faster) in frequency. (Possibly more scarce physics.)

The 'mysterious' lack of 'technology' details makes this sound like a PR 'result' for the BL project. (When Lorimer reported the first FRB, the details were there.)

If - and it’s a HUGE if - it’s actually a technological signal - would be cool if it was a Contact-like repeater probe designed to eventually get our attention. Because the Proxima Centauri neighborhood doesn’t really seem like it can harbor life for long enough to evolve to at least the level of radio communication.

Would of course be an obvious location for our erstwhile cosmic mentors to place their easter egg monolith. They may know in only four years that we found it.

Alternatively, if we really are hearing native Proxomitrons, that'll be the clearest cue imaginable that life is abundant absolutely everywhere.

Please let it not be some unshielded box of cheap electronics in the observatory basement.

That monolith vs Proxomitrons bit would be an interesting and important distinction to make, if it does turn out to be extraterrestrial and unequivocally technological it wouldn't necessarily count as evidence that intelligent life has evolved over there... only that something/someone technological is about.

But yeah, unshielded electronics until proven otherwise.

On what basis do you make that assertion? We don't know much about the system.

Proxima is flare star, massive stellar winds would outstrip any atmosphere, habitable zone is on approximately 11d orbital period, more x-rays than sun, etc...

Something I always thought about is if there was advanced civilizations elsewhere in the universe colonizing planets they would probably build their settlements/bases underground or possibly even under water to protect them from cosmological threats like meteors, comets, solar flares/radiation, etc. akin to our nuclear bases like Cheyenne Mountain.

If they're so advanced why build colonies in extremely dangerous environments? There's a lot of better places out there

Why not? Life on earth, including human life, has a tendency to sneak into every nook and cranny.

On earth, much of it as I understand is because the “good land” may already be occupied by others, and (initially) less competition in a new place may make it overall less inhospitable than surviving in a fertile but competitive land. After initial generations settle there, future generations will often stay in their native homelands by default unless driven out by other factors. Of course, this is just reasons for settling around Earth itself; who knows what drives the motivations of alien species?

I think you'd be at risk of things like meteors, comets and solar flares no matter what planet you chose. Plus they would need to acquire natural resources, it would make sense to acquire them from uninhabitable planets rather then waste good real estate.

But it’s tidally locked, so life near the terminus (but just over the horizon) could feed of the energy of the star while being shielded by the planet itself. Kinda like hydrothermal vents.

Wouldn't that destroy any RF-capable probe?

Not a shielded one

928Mhz. That's some GSM-Booster ET is using there!

982 MHz. 928 MHz is in the unlicensed band and would probably be Lorawan or something.

so aliens are calling by phone?

Who knows? TBH I had this movie from 1982 in my mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial

wherein some sort of turtle/reptiloid alien is somehow stranded on Earth, and can make electronic(or all sorts of things? (can't remember anymore)) work with his (on demand) red glowing finger. And tries to build a "telephone" out of trash with the help of a child, to "phone home" and call for help.

Nope, they sent a rocket or satellite. The positive doppler shift means it's heading towards us, fast.

If we would fly there, we would need about 80 years with our current rocket tech. It's the nearest earth-like planet afterall. They could be more advanced and be here earlier. We'll see.

The voyager 1 probe is about 21 light hours from us after 43 years even with gravitational assist. Proxima Centauri is about 4.2 light years away.

Current rocket tech, not stone age.

Even the New Horizons spacecraft's speed relative to earth is less than Voyager 1, and it was launched back in 2006.

Still plain old conventional rockets. This would need 78.000 years, impossible.

Eg with a lightsail or StarChip it would need 20 years. There are also other possibilities. My neighbor is rocket technician. https://earthsky.org/space/alpha-centauri-travel-time

You did specify current rocket tech. The technologies you're talking about have not been tested or used commercially or by any space agency as far as I'm aware.

Can someone please tell me why articles of this type leave me with a feeling like "this could have been said in 50 words"?

Is it because the author was tasked with filling x pages and then proceeded to dilute the content as needed?

I wish there was a way to identify these articles before-hand and...not read them, or get a summary.

I totally want to read full articles when they are NOT written this way.

Wait, the thing is flying towards us?!

God, I hope so.

This is what they heard when they decyphered the signal:"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

That it seem to come from our closest star system should be a very big coincidence if it comes from an alien civilization. A natural, or somewhat human origin seems more likely.

> should be a very big coincidence

If life in the universe is common, then it should come as no surprise that it is found close together.

how long does it take for this signal to reach Earth?

Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away, therefore it takes 4.2 to send a signal from there to here (or vice-versa)

Assuming this is an intelligently-created signal, then it’s most likely something that was transmitted from Earth 8.4 years ago.

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