Strange Signal Comes From Alien Planet, Scientist Says

Fox News ^ | October 11th, 2010

[TaraP]

The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life. At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community.

Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy as the location of Gliese 581g, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail online. [Alien Planet Gliese581g: FAQ]

Bhathal is a member of the Australian chapter of SETI, a non-profit scientific organization that is dedicated to research, exploration and education in the field of astrobiology.

"Whenever there's a clear night, I go up to the observatory and do a run on some of the celestial objects," Bhathal told the Daily Mail. "Looking at one of these objects, we found this signal. We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we're looking for – a very sharp spike. And that is what we found."

Still, there are some scientists who are skeptical of Bhathal's assertion.

[theDentist]

Signal has been decoded as follows:

"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT GLIESE 581G. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE."

[Lakeshark]

Well?

Have you no shame?

[Darksheare]

Nope, none.
;-)

[Kevmo]

I believe the typical Drake equation results are off by several THOUSAND orders of magnitude. If it takes 1 in 300 trillion trillion for a polypeptide to form from an amino acid, and several hundred thousand of those to form a simple life cell, then the chances of life forming are 1/[(300,000,000,000,000,000,000)^100,000] — not 1/100.

Note that mathemeticians consider something impossible if it is less than 1/10^50

But... maybe I’m off by 3 or 4 orders of magnitude — I’ll spot you 5.