ATS: SETI Captures Signal

It appears that SETI has captured a radio signal on 3 different occasions. Sientists aren't convienced yet that it is "alien" yet but are studying it further.



According to the article, 2 home computers were identified as the ones who initially analyzed the signal. Now the question remains with all the members here that run the software could it be one of us?

Has anyone been contacted by SETI@Home lately?

[edit on 9-2-2004 by Valhall]

No, but stil trying.

"There are other oddities. For instance, the signal�s frequency is drifting by
between eight to 37 hertz per second. �The signal is moving rapidly in
frequency and you would expect that to happen if you are looking at a
transmitter on a planet that�s rotating very rapidly and where the civilisation
is not correcting the transmission for the motion of the planet,� Korpela says" this looks good i supsect there talking to the un thats why the info is being taken. thay maybey looking at ways to brake it so thay donte panic every body. and itv transmitter is going off aire i wonder iff that is connected thay say its for matience

[edit on 2-9-2004 by leejones]

[edit on 2-9-2004 by leejones]

I think its to soon to say " the civilisation is not correcting the transmission for the motion of the planet", the transmission could be from something that has nothing to do with a civilisation.

Do they say what distance is this from Earth?

I so hope its a new life form. I am so bored with the ones now. (jk)

The distance is 1000 light years. This means that yes we may have stumbled upon another civilazation that 1000 years ago had radio technology. The sad news is that this civilazation may not even exsist today and if they do we have no way of letting them know we exsist for another 900 years.

Originally posted by BlackJackal
The distance is 1000 light years. This means that yes we may have stumbled upon another civilazation that 1000 years ago had radio technology. The sad news is that this civilazation may not even exsist today and if they do we have no way of letting them know we exsist for another 900 years.

Thats 900 light years, not years.

This remindes me of the movie Contact. Maby its a plan of some sort....

VERY INTERESTING... but also dissapointing... that means that unless wormholes or other faster than light method is developed, then the fastest way to reach that area would be by laser communication... and that would still take 1000 years to get there... so the main thing it would do is shut up allt he creationists that deny that any other life can exist in the universe. and maybe convince people that we may have visits from aliens at some time in the future or in the past. Really good that they found a signal though... i underestand that the SETI movement was starting to wain... this will re-energize it..

I hope it goes into mainstream media. Maby then they will get some more money and recources to go even further into the cosmos.

Originally posted by SpittinCobra

Originally posted by BlackJackal
The sad news is that this civilazation may not even exsist today and if they do we have no way of letting them know we exsist for another 900 years.

Thats 900 light years, not years.

No he's right, sort of, I would have said a 1000 years before they would get our reply though, not sure where 900 comes from?

A light year is a measurement of distance i.e. the distance a photon of light travels in 1 year.

Radio waves also travel at the speed of light and as it's 1000 light years away it took 1000 years for the signal to get here and it will take another 1000 years for a signal we send to get back.

900 years is the time at which they will be aware of us, since we have had radio for about 100 years... the bad thing is the programming in the early days was so bad, that they will probably change the station from boredom,

Ah yes of course, the way it was written I kind of assumed he meant a delibrate transmission aimed at them....
Great, so they will probably get Hitler as a first impression of us... Nice...

you want radio singials from another planet look up newyork times paper back in 1920 .(sorry dont rember the day or month and realy sorry to say the year may be wrong as well. But sometime in the early 20es The newyork TIMEs reported that a radio (Wave had been recived from (get this from MARS but it went on to say it could have been a natrial radio sorce.
So you tell me is there a strong enough natrial raido sorce that a plant can produce that can be picked up with primitive raido equment?
Let me tell you how I found out about this story .I use to read the sun and other tabloid papers for kiks .You wouldent belive how manny ufos have crashed here lolo .By now we have a FLEET of them lol.
anyway the paper had a story about mars sending a messege and how they were die ing off because of war warning use to not follow there foot steps and it also gave the ORIGAN of there story as newyork times 1920 something so I went down to the libary to look up the original story again for kiks just to see how much they excaraget lol.
and the real story was as above A real raido singial but undifined as Life or not life comming from mars.

They're saying that it's all hype, and that nothing unusual has happened. We now bring you back to your regular, gray, ho hum, working daily life...

www.theregister.co.uk...

news.bbc.co.uk...

acording to newsround thay are all looking in to it so some thinks in the air

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
900 years is the time at which they will be aware of us, since we have had radio for about 100 years... the bad thing is the programming in the early days was so bad, that they will probably change the station from boredom,

Yes that is what I meant. Sorry for not being more clear.

The signal has only been observed on three occasions for about a minute each time. This is not really long enough for it to be analysed properly, scientists say, which means there are plenty of possible explanations for it.

I remain skeptical but also optimistic. It has been observed 3 times. What we could have stumbled upon is the beginnings of civilazations ventures in to Radio Technology. Also we are only looking in the 1420 Mhz range. It could be that by expanding the search to different Frequencies we could get more data.

They've also made the statement that something nearby the telescope could be emitting waves at this level - they need to test with another telescope and see if it is still detected, then at the least it can't be from a local source.

The SETI Director said something along the lines of "Yes, this is interesting, and we're definitely looking into it, but it isn't miraculous or amazing until we've seen it 4, 5, 6 times... Then we can start to really work with this."

Once they've tested from 2 other differently configured telescopes, they will have eliminated the options that it is a telescopic error and that it is being broadcasted by an object on the ground. I say differently configured because if 1 object is used in the operation of all of a similar type of telescope, this would remain present. If 2 other completely differently set up telescopes get the same results, then the same object won't be affecting them the exact same way, even if it is still present it will likely be located somewhere else in the structure, and cause this phenomena elsewhere.

After we've tested that and eliminated the possibility of a local signal/error, then we should get some good minds thinking on what natural event could produce this. Could a tiny black hole of miniscule mass emitting radio waves from an EXTREME distance have redshifted all the way down to the 1420 Mhz range? If it's so small, then perhaps it is orbiting a giant star, or another, much larger black hole. This speed could account for the massive fluctuation. If we can test this, we should - the point is, we should do our darndest to eliminate the possibility of a natural phenomenon. The largest argument in the field against natural phenomena will be "Why is it only present in this one place, and no where else?"

Things like the fact that it always starts at precisely 1420 Mhz then begins fluctuating are the most interesting parts. It could be like a ghost-signal. They get the initial signal at 1420 Mhz from a local instrument, and then focus on it, raising the instrument's power levels, as it uses more and less energy, the signal fluctuates, until some other event cuts it off.

Certainly something to keep an eye on, if not a revolutionary discovery.

Does anyone know where this signal is coming from? I'd love to find the name of the star the signal points at, as well as maps of the whole Milky Way Galaxy, as well as our own solar neighborhood within 1000 light years, showing both our star and the star the signal seems to be originating from...