2021 started with a bang. (Proxima Centauri) News came at that time that a project named “Breakdown Listen’ had probably detected extraterrestrial signal. The excitement in it was because it was assumed that the signal was probably coming from the “Proxima Centauri Star’ the star which is nearest to our sun (about four light years away).
There is another thing. We know an earth sized planet is present near Proxima Centauri and that also in its habitable zone. Now what is its update after two years, what happened to that signal?
Alien Signal received
There are more than 100 billion galaxies in our universe and almost more than 100 billion stars are found in each galaxy and now we also know this, there is at least one planet orbiting around almost every star. It means there are innumerable planets present in our universe. But up till now, we have only one planet in the whole universe where we know life is present that is our own earth, meaning we have only one example of biology up till today.
Is life present somewhere else?
I think definitely because there are so many pallets. Like must be present at some other place, rather intelligent life as I think. But up till today, we have no evidence of the present of life in the universe. You can guess that this sort of discovery that an alien signal has been received will be a very big new and it will have many philosophical implications also.
S.E.T.I.
For this search of aliens, it is not possible for us to reach other stars as yet but we can look for this type of signals, which may be coming from an alien civilization and these are in a way called Techno Signatures and its broad systematic is called “SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE” or S.E.T.I.
Now, the problem is not the lack of Techno Signatures because when the radio telescope especially, search for these signals they find out a lot of signals but most of these signals from this earth. SETI program establishes different type of protocols as how to eliminate the interference the signals of this Earth.
One of these types of SETI program is “Project Breakthrough Listen”. It is systematically search since 2016. There are other SETI programs also which are searching for alien signals but this is a very big and a recent program.
In 2019 Parks Observatory in Australia was searching for this data. It detected a signal which remained prominent for five hours, looked like a techno signatures. This signal was coming from the direction of Proxima Centauri.
This is an interesting system because the Proxima Centauri is the nearest star to us. And in 2016 was also learned that and earth sized on planet is orbiting it.
Not only this, the name of this planet is Proxima Centauri b, this Proxima Centauri b is the habitable zone of this star system. Habitable zone does not means that life exist on habitable zone but life may be possible there because astronomers think that liquid water is essential for life.
These reasons when we learned signals in 2019 was probably towards Proxima Centauri. It was an interesting matter and there was need for more investigation.
Proxima Centauri
Let me clarify one thing Proxima Centauri is not a system like our solar system.
The first thing, it is a part of a triple star system, there are two other stars in this system which are bigger and this orbits these two.
The second thing is Proxima Centauri is smaller than our sun and we call it Red Dwarf. The temperature of its surface is less than of our sun and it is slightly reddish in color.
Because of this reasons its habitable zone (the distance where water is present in liquid form on a planet) is relatively closer to that star.
Australia Study about Proxima Centauri
We do not know yet, whether the life around red dwarfs can be stable or not. In fact, to study these very flares parks Observatory in Australia was observing Proxima Centauri. It was monitoring it for 26 hours, in 2019.
In that measurement they noted in the data a signal, a very prominent one, remaining on frequency 982 MHz for five hours. This is the signal for which the scientists got interested to know if this was an alien signal or not. These frequencies are the same in astronomy as there are frequencies in radio bands.
982MHz Frequency
This 982MHz Frequency is actually such a range where the background of our galaxy is relatively less
So astronomers think that if aliens are transmitting in radio waves they will do that in such a range where the background of our galaxy is less. For that matter if there is a signal in this range.
There was another reason also far which the signal looked interesting because the bandwidth of this signal is very narrow. These narrow band signals indicate that this is not a natural phenomena because a lot of natural things have a broad bandwidth. These narrow band signals are usually created artificially as we create on our earth with other instruments.
The signal of Proxima Centauri, the first thing it was on 982MHz, it remained for five hours and it was on a narrowband. All these points say, that this is not natural, it is on an interesting wavelength, but is it coming from Proxima Centauri or not.
Nodding Signal Proxima Centauri
The one thing is called nodding test. Nodding test is, the radio telescope towards the signal and sees at another spot if signal is there or not. It against sees the source weather is there and then checks off source if the signal has disappeared. This is called nodding test and this Proxima Centauri pass this test. Its frequency is shifting a little. Shifting frequency say something near this Proxima Centauri is in Orbit.
The frequency of that signal itself is slowly changing. It could be a planet near the Proxima Centauri star. Maybe there is a satellite there but it means that probably the source producing that signal in is in orbit around Proxima Centauri. This was an important thing and astronomers thought that if all these things are added up, maybe this could be an extraterrestrial signal.
Signal again detect from Proxima Centauri?
Some astronomers wanted to follow up on they searched for signals near Proxima, Centauri in 2020, they did not find anything. In 2021 they again tried to find signals there and again they did not find anything.
Result of Proxima Centauri Signal
We do not know what happened to those signals. Was that really an alien signal, we do not know. But the maximum chance, according to astronomers is, it was a technical malfunction, some interference, reasons of which we do not know yet. They did an interesting thing.
They tried to find out if these type of signals are visible or not in the rest of data of other things meaning on these frequencies were normally we would not expect any alien civilization will be communicating and certainly, they found several dozen lookalike signals in which they saw the same drift or Doppler effect, but on those frequencies which are due to the interference of the Earth meaning the automatic system had already eliminated it because it was the earth’s interference. The signal of Proxima Centauri in 2019 was earth’s interference.
Contrast of Proxima Centauri signal
The contrast of Proxima Centauri signal in the claim, the Oumuamua, an interstellar comet which came from some other star a few years before
This was the first comet of some other star to pass through our solar system. This is a Natural object. But a very prominent astronomer of Harvard Avi Loeb up till today claim that the interstellar comet Oumuamua was an alien spacecraft.
