Scientists detect mystery radio signal from nearby star

[Foxaèr]

Scientists have discovered mystery signals coming from a star 11 light years away. The “very peculiar” pulses appear to be unique to the red dwarf, scientists say, with observations of similar nearby stars showing no similar behavior.

Researchers at the Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico, were observing a group of red dwarf stars in a bid to identify planets and other objects orbiting them. In April and May, the team recorded information coming from Gliese 436, Ross 128, Wolf 359, HD 95735, BD +202465, V* RY Sex, and K2-18.

After analyzing the data, they noticed something odd. One of the stars—Ross 128—had been emitting strange radio signals. In a blog post, Abel Méndez, Director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, said the origin of the radio signals is not known.

“We realized that there were some very peculiar signals in the 10-minute dynamic spectrum that we obtained from Ross 128,” he wrote. “The signals consisted of broadband quasi-periodic non-polarized pulses with very strong dispersion-like features. We believe that the signals are not local radio frequency interferences since they are unique to Ross 128 and observations of other stars immediately before and after did not show anything similar.”

So what could they be? Scientists have three main potential explanations at the moment—they could be emissions similar to a Type II solar flare, emissions from another object in the field of view of the star or that they are coming from a high orbit satellite near Ross 128.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/scientis...arby-star/

[brewer]

"Sex" is in the name, I'm going with sex related. "Peculiar pulses" was the give away.

[vorlon13]

Terrestrial interference is 'always' the answer to these mystery radio signals that turn up.

[Minimalist]

“In case you are wondering, the recurrent aliens hypothesis is at the bottom of many other better explanations.”

Exactly.

[Chad32]

So it is possible, however unlikely, that some aliens got a satellite in orbit around a star, and we've detected it? Though it would be kind of funny if we may have just found one of our lost satellites that's orbiting another star right now.

[Fireball]

Terrestrial interference is 'always' the answer to these mystery radio signals that turn up.

It's in C-band, (4 GHz - 8 GHz) which is almost completely taken up with telecommunications. Lots of local sources for error. Especially since TV satellites are in Geosynchronous orbit and use that band. I wonder what the signal looks like?

[vorlon13]

Yeah.

The signal could be 'leakage' from a sloppy side-lobe for a DirecTV local channel spot beam, or the same thing with DISH Network. That the source isn't moving is pretty much the smoking gun for something in geosynchronous orbit.

And DISH and DirecTV are just one of many outfits with assets in that orbit. There's enough 'stuff' there I'm almost surprised there hasn't been actual hostilities, earthside, from some country that thinks they aren't getting their fair share or someone else is doing something there that is pissing them off.

[Thumpalumpacus]

So it is possible, however unlikely, that some aliens got a satellite in orbit around a star, and we've detected it? Though it would be kind of funny if we may have just found one of our lost satellites that's orbiting another star right now.

Satellites are usually natural.

[vorlon13]

Yeah.

The signal could be 'leakage' from a sloppy side-lobe for a DirecTV local channel spot beam, or the same thing with DISH Network.  That the source isn't moving is pretty much the smoking gun for something in geosynchronous orbit.

And DISH and DirecTV are just one of many outfits with assets in that orbit.  There's enough 'stuff' there I'm almost surprised there hasn't been actual hostilities, earthside, from some country that thinks they aren't getting their fair share or someone else is doing something there that is pissing them off.

That's wrong.

Sorry.

Got my frames of reference screwed up.


It's still terrestrial interference.

[vorlon13]

Might be a satellite of ours in a LaGrange orbit. I think several of the 4 near earth have spacecraft in/near them, the spot on the far side of the sun in earth's orbit isn't useful to us.