A Chinese Telescope Did Not Find an Alien Signal. The Search Continues. (yahoo.com) 32
Earlier this week China's giant Sky Eye telescope detected signals it thought could be from an alien civilizations.
But now there's an update from LiveScience: Dan Werthimer, a Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) researcher at the University of Berkeley, California and a coauthor on the research project which first spotted the signals, told Live Science that the narrow-band radio signals he and his fellow researchers found "are from [human] radio interference, and not from extraterrestrials....
"The big problem, and the problem in this particular case, is that we're looking for signals from extraterrestrials, but what we find is a zillion signals from terrestrials," Werthimer told Live Science. "They're very weak signals, but the cryogenic receivers on the telescopes are super sensitive and can pick up signals from cell phones, television, radar and satellites — and there are more and more satellites in the sky every day. If you're kind of new in the game, and you don't know all these different ways that interference can get into your data and corrupt it, it's pretty easy to get excited...."
The recent false alarm is one of several instances in which alien-hunting scientists have been misled by noise from human activity. In 2019, astronomers spotted a signal beamed to Earth from Proxima Centauri — the nearest star system to our sun (sitting roughly 4.2 light-years away) and home to at least one potentially habitable planet. The signal was a narrow-band radio wave typically associated with human-made objects, which led scientists to entertain the thrilling possibility that it came from alien technology. Studies released two years later, however, suggested that the signal was most likely produced by malfunctioning human equipment, Live Science previously reported. Similarly, another famous set of signals once supposed to have come from aliens, detected between 2011 and 2014, turned out to have actually been made by scientists microwaving their lunches.
Werthimer tells the New York Times unequivocally that "These signals are from radio interference; they are due to radio pollution from earthlings, not from E.T."
But the Times also got a comment from Paul Horowitz, an emeritus professor of physics at Harvard who created his own alien-listening campaign called Project Meta, funded by the Planetary Society. Those who endure profess not to be discouraged by the Great Silence, as it is called, from out there. They've always been in the search for the long run, they say. "The Great Silence is hardly unexpected," said Dr. Horowitz, including because only a fraction of a percent of the 200 million stars in the Milky Way have been surveyed. Nobody ever said that detecting that rain of alien radio signals would be easy.
Even Dan Werthimer concedes to LiveScience, "I think it'd be very strange if we're the only ones. If you look at the numbers, there's a trillion planets in the galaxy — five times more planets than there are stars. A lot of them are little dinky planets like Earth. Many of them have liquid water, so intelligent life, while not as common as bacterial life, could still be fairly common."
But now there's an update from LiveScience: Dan Werthimer, a Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) researcher at the University of Berkeley, California and a coauthor on the research project which first spotted the signals, told Live Science that the narrow-band radio signals he and his fellow researchers found "are from [human] radio interference, and not from extraterrestrials....
"The big problem, and the problem in this particular case, is that we're looking for signals from extraterrestrials, but what we find is a zillion signals from terrestrials," Werthimer told Live Science. "They're very weak signals, but the cryogenic receivers on the telescopes are super sensitive and can pick up signals from cell phones, television, radar and satellites — and there are more and more satellites in the sky every day. If you're kind of new in the game, and you don't know all these different ways that interference can get into your data and corrupt it, it's pretty easy to get excited...."
The recent false alarm is one of several instances in which alien-hunting scientists have been misled by noise from human activity. In 2019, astronomers spotted a signal beamed to Earth from Proxima Centauri — the nearest star system to our sun (sitting roughly 4.2 light-years away) and home to at least one potentially habitable planet. The signal was a narrow-band radio wave typically associated with human-made objects, which led scientists to entertain the thrilling possibility that it came from alien technology. Studies released two years later, however, suggested that the signal was most likely produced by malfunctioning human equipment, Live Science previously reported. Similarly, another famous set of signals once supposed to have come from aliens, detected between 2011 and 2014, turned out to have actually been made by scientists microwaving their lunches.
Werthimer tells the New York Times unequivocally that "These signals are from radio interference; they are due to radio pollution from earthlings, not from E.T."
But the Times also got a comment from Paul Horowitz, an emeritus professor of physics at Harvard who created his own alien-listening campaign called Project Meta, funded by the Planetary Society. Those who endure profess not to be discouraged by the Great Silence, as it is called, from out there. They've always been in the search for the long run, they say. "The Great Silence is hardly unexpected," said Dr. Horowitz, including because only a fraction of a percent of the 200 million stars in the Milky Way have been surveyed. Nobody ever said that detecting that rain of alien radio signals would be easy.
Even Dan Werthimer concedes to LiveScience, "I think it'd be very strange if we're the only ones. If you look at the numbers, there's a trillion planets in the galaxy — five times more planets than there are stars. A lot of them are little dinky planets like Earth. Many of them have liquid water, so intelligent life, while not as common as bacterial life, could still be fairly common."
A Chinese Telescope Did Not Find an Alien Signal. (Score:3)
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Distractions (Score:1)
Usually when the news is full of possible alien discoveries or other debates with a high emotional or pseudo-science content (like sentient AI), it means that there is a big (political/scandal/geopolitics/war) issue they do not want us to talk about.
So, since the cards are shuffled and quite clear on the table regarding Ukraine, i can only ponder what it would be. Plenty candidates. Just question, what important news was there but did not make the headlines.
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Bummer. (Score:2)
I had all my hopes on this. Not.
This is very surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
By this I mean the quick retraction. I can understand that these people have been looking for so long in vain that they can get over-excited. But they should take a bit of an inspiration with how the particle Physicists does it: When faced with something very unlikely, they first look very carefully. Then they look a bit more. Then they ask other teams to help. And only then they ask generally, but say "We do not think this is what it looks like, but we have trouble finding the problem, can anybody help?" And then they find that the measured FTL particle transmission was actually a defective connector. At no point did they do something unethical. You know, like people with scientific integrity, not like over-excitable children.
We sadly have far too many supposedly adults (professionals and others) acting like over-excitable children.
There's no penalty for being wrong (Score:2)
...the next researcher who falsely claims to have found ET should be forced to dress like ET for a month, approach drunk farmers while beeping, and eat nothing but pickles.
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No researcher claimed the detection of ET.
They reported the detection of a signal that had some characteristics of that expected from an alien technological signal, but they also stated that the polarization indicated that it was due to EFI.
https://assets.researchsquare.... [researchsquare.com]
They is a very substantial risk to one's reputation for claiming a significant discovery that is not supported by the evidence.
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It's okay, I like dressing as ET.
Leave? (Score:2)
No telescope needed, just look in Xinjiang camps (Score:2)
Doesn't make sense on Earth (Score:1)
Build a radio telescope complex on the far side of the moon, where it makes sense, not here on Earth where it has to deal with all the radio interference. Then literally ban use of radio signals anywhere it might interfere with it. Future expeditions on that "side" (I would say hemisphere, but I really just mean anywhere near enough to be an issue) can use lasers for communications.
Or... (Score:1)
Wet market (Score:2)
Not aliens? (Score:2)
Color me surprised.
Burying the lede (Score:2)
"Earlier this week China's giant Sky Eye telescope detected signals it thought could be from an alien civilizations."
Hayzeus almighty, they made a thinking telescope. Who cares if it thought wrong?
This again (Score:2)
Not the first time a crappy cheap microwave oven caused a space radio telescope to pick up an 'alien' signal.
Give up? (Score:2)
What are the odds... (Score:2)
Although I've not done a rigorous analysis, I've always been a bit skeptical about these projects looking for radio signals.
Although we use radio frequencies for many, many things today and an alien listening for them might (when the waves reach them) detect them, 200 years ago we were not generating radio frequency signals (at least intentionally) and in 1000 years I suspect we won't (if we are still around) - perhaps we will be using quantum entanglement in some form or communicate via some other medium m
It's Never Aliens (Score:2)
The first rule of SETI: It's never aliens.