Not Aliens: Weird Radio Signal from Star Likely Has Duller Explanation

[Eugene]

Source: Space.com

Not Aliens: Weird Radio Signal from Star Likely Has Duller Explanation

By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | July 21, 2017 04:27pm ET

A strange radio signal that seemed to emanate from a small nearby star probably came from Earth-orbiting satellites, astronomers say.

Late last week, researchers announced that, on May 12, the 1,000-foot-wide (305 meters) Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico detected a bizarre radio signal in the vicinity of Ross 128, a red dwarf star that lies just 11 light-years from Earth.

The signal was theoretically consistent with a transmission from an alien civilization, the astronomers said, though they stressed that hypothesis was "at the bottom of many other explanations." Indeed, they pegged the leading candidates as flares from Ross 128, emissions from some other object in the same field of view as the star, and a burst from one or more high-orbiting satellites.

Now, follow-up observations — by Arecibo, as well as the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in northern California — point to this last hypothesis as the most likely, team members said.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.space.com/37579-weird-radio-signal-ross-128-star-satellite.html

[lastlib]

1. Darn. An intercepted alien transmission would have been so --interesting......