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Scientists looking for aliens investigate radio beam 'from nearby star'
The Guardian ^ | Ian Sample

Posted on 12/19/2020 9:31:21 AM PST by BenLurkin

The narrow beam of radio waves was picked up during 30 hours of observations by the Parkes telescope in Australia in April and May last year... Analysis of the beam has been under way for some time and scientists have yet to identify a terrestrial culprit such as ground-based equipment or a passing satellite.

It is usual for astronomers on the $100m (£70m) Breakthrough Listen project to spot strange blasts of radio waves with the Parkes telescope or the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, but all so far have been attributed to human-made interference or natural sources.

...980MHz, and an apparent shift in its frequency said to be consistent with the movement of a planet have added to the tantalising nature of the finding. Scientists are now preparing a paper on the beam, named BLC1, for Breakthrough Listen, the project to search for evidence of life in space...

The beam that appears to have come from the direction of Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star 4.2 light years from Earth, has not been spotted since the initial observation, according to an individual in the astronomy community who requested anonymity because the work is ongoing. “It is the first serious candidate since the ‘Wow! signal’...”

...

Proxima Centauri... At least two planets are known to orbit the star. One is a gas giant and the other is believed to be a rocky world about 17% more massive than Earth.

In 2017, Nasa scientists used computer models to show that if Proxima b had an Earth-like atmosphere, it could easily be stripped away by the intense radiation and solar flares unleashed by its parent star. Under this battering, the 4bn-year-old planet could have lost its entire atmosphere in 100m years.

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy
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1 posted on 12/19/2020 9:31:21 AM PST by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin
"to serve America"

...it's a Joe Biden cookbook

2 posted on 12/19/2020 9:33:45 AM PST by RckyRaCoCo (Please Pray For My Brother Ken.)
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To: BenLurkin

“Send More Chuck Berry!”


3 posted on 12/19/2020 9:34:35 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: BenLurkin

The radio beam from Howard Stern would be a safe bet.


4 posted on 12/19/2020 9:34:43 AM PST by Spok (All free men are equal only in their freedom; everything else is up to them.dirt road.)
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To: BenLurkin

Too bad Jodie Foster plays for the other team. She was not super cute but not bad, either.

5 posted on 12/19/2020 9:38:08 AM PST by freedumb2003 ("Do not mistake activity for achievement." - John Wooden)
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To: BenLurkin

6 posted on 12/19/2020 9:47:52 AM PST by caww ( )
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To: BenLurkin

The Borg are coming. Soroznazi was just their advance scout


7 posted on 12/19/2020 9:47:55 AM PST by faithhopecharity (Politicians are not born, they are excreted. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE))
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To: freedumb2003

This is another great book based on SETI that diverges into outstanding arguements for the existence of God. The sequel is even better. That it is not rated 5 stars has got to be the atheist crowd being upset at the ideas laid out here.

Even if you’re not used to reading science fiction you will enjoy the book

The Sparrow by Mary Doris Russell (read about her life too)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sparrow_%28novel%29


8 posted on 12/19/2020 9:49:46 AM PST by jcon40 (The other post before yours really nails it for me. IOr keep people from / PC ing in ver and alway)
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To: BenLurkin
Red Dwarf Alert!

Lister, Cat, and Rimmer finally calling home...

9 posted on 12/19/2020 10:13:42 AM PST by SuperLuminal (Where is Sam Adams now that we desperately need him)
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To: jcon40

Thanx, will check it out. A good book can be hard to find.


10 posted on 12/19/2020 10:15:42 AM PST by Pearls Before Swine
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To: faithhopecharity
The Borg are coming. Soroznazi was just their advance scout

Zuckerborg, you can tell by the eyes...


11 posted on 12/19/2020 10:33:13 AM PST by farming pharmer (fork you :(){ :|:& };:)
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To: BenLurkin

I’m trying to find out just when did sound waves become faster than light. 🤔

I must have overlooked something.
Just Saying....


12 posted on 12/19/2020 11:15:50 AM PST by Pez149
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To: jcon40

Re: The Sparrow

I wouldn’t mind reading it if I could find an ebook of it without DRM crap wrapped around it.


13 posted on 12/19/2020 11:41:12 AM PST by zeugma (Stop deluding yourself that America is still a free country.)
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To: BenLurkin

The beam that appears to have come from the direction of Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star 4.2 light years from Earth

-
Translated the message says: “To be in the loop, be sure to read the non-fiction trilogy by Liu Cixin, “The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Death’s End. Do not reply to this message”.


14 posted on 12/19/2020 11:51:52 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: freedumb2003

15 posted on 12/19/2020 11:53:58 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: PIF

Dude. “Bullard of the Space Patrol” is about as deep as I can handle.


16 posted on 12/19/2020 12:08:35 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

Kizinti.😁


17 posted on 12/19/2020 12:13:44 PM PST by BiteYourSelf ( Earth first we'll strip mine the other planets later.)
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To: BenLurkin

Well, if you want to know more about the aliens on Proxima Centauri, you will need to read these - else stick with the shtick from the 1950s aliens, like “Bullard of the Space Patrol”. Life’s hard, then you die.


18 posted on 12/19/2020 1:55:35 PM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: PIF

I see. Well, if ever you talk to the aliens on Proxima Centauri, please tell them to stay there.


19 posted on 12/19/2020 2:40:42 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

You are in the dark here - the beam from the region of Proxima is a warning, not a greeting. If you read the books you would learn that revealing one’s location is a death warrant. This is an alternate theory to Fermi who basically said where are all the aliens? Stephen Hawking replied toward the end of his life: they are hiding and issued a radio silence warning.

And so the Dark Forest theory - like a dark forest there are predators lurking looking for prey or other competitors. Once a position is reveled then whatever is there is prey, however to attack it openly is to reveal your location to another predator.

the argument is laid out like this:
All life desires to stay alive;
The universe has finite resources;
There is always a chance of a technological breakthrough;
There is no way to know if other lifeforms can or will destroy you if given a chance;
Lacking assurances, the safest option for any species is to annihilate other life forms before they have a chance to do the same.

All attacks must be absolute and must be indirect or casual. In the novels, one method is to launch a device from an indeterminate location on a seemingly random course, then leave rapidly. The device intersects eventually over a lengthy period with the target sun causing it to nova and destroy all life in that system. Another is to fire a ‘seed’ which drifts in the general direction of the target, on reaching the target it blossoms and changes the dimensionality of the system from 4-D to 2-D, killing all life.

Scouts can be harmless looking rocks or comets passing through a system like Oumuamua or 2I/Borisov. So that is why I wrote what I did. Hope this helps, or you can just go back to another episode of Bubba the Space Cowboy.


20 posted on 12/19/2020 4:13:43 PM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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