Signals from the center of the Milky Way could be alien contacts

A new plan to search for extraterrestrial intelligent life focuses on the heart of the Milky Way. According to an article published this week in the scientific journal The astronomical journalthere is a potential point of emission of repetitive signals that may represent alien contact attempts.

According to the study authors, they chose the region as a target because it is home to a significant number of stars, which increases the chances of detecting “palpitations” with a certain narrow frequency pattern – a common behavior of so-called pulsars.

They assume that, just as we use radar, made up of antennas and electricity, to send intermittent electromagnetic pulses over long distances, alien civilizations that, perhaps, inhabit exoplanets in the orbit of these stars can do the same. Since these pulses are silhouetted against the radio noise of space, they would be an effective way to communicate deep in the cosmos.

To test this hypothesis, the team led by Akshay Suresh, an astronomy graduate student at Cornell University in New York, developed software based on an algorithm Fast foldinga highly qualified method for detecting periodic events in temporal data.

Then using the data captured from the file Green Bank Telescope In the target region of the study, the researchers applied the system to known pulsar stars, with the aim of testing whether it could capture signals of tight repeats.

“Using narrow bandwidths and repeating patterns would be a prime way for aliens to reveal themselves, as such a combination is extremely unlikely to occur naturally,” said study co-author Steve Croft, a SETI Institute scientist* , a non-profit organization dedicated to the search for intelligent life in the universe, in a announcement.

“Our study sheds light on the remarkable energy efficiency of a pulse train as a means of interstellar communication over vast distances,” said co-author Vishal Gajjar, also a member of the SETI Institute. “Remarkably, this study marks the first comprehensive effort to conduct in-depth research of these signals.”

While they didn’t find any telltale signs in their first analysis, the researchers say the speed of the algorithm, capable of analyzing 1.5 million samples in 30 minutes, will help improve investigations in the future.

^{*SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)}

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Source: Olhar Digital