SETI

Splitting this out of the astronomy thread.

SETI Nebula processing progress report dated 10 June 2021:

SETI Nebula processing progress report dated 12 July 2021:

SETI Nebula processing progress report dated 04 August 2021:
 
9 grouped Anomalies Appeared then Disappeared on a Star Survey in 1950 with Dr. Beatriz Villarroel:

View: https://youtu.be/yLpy-ZFQSf8


Here’s the related paper to the above:

Exploring nine simultaneously occurring transients on April 12th 1950

Abstract
Nine point sources appeared within half an hour on a region within ∼

10 arcmin of a red-sensitive photographic plate taken in April 1950 as part of the historic Palomar Sky Survey. All nine sources are absent on both previous and later photographic images, and absent in modern surveys with CCD detectors which go several magnitudes deeper. We present deep CCD images with the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias, reaching brightness ∼26
r

26
mag, that reveal possible optical counterparts, although these counterparts could equally well be just chance projections. The incidence of transients in the investigated photographic plate is far higher than expected from known detection rates of optical counterparts to e.g. flaring dwarf stars, Fast Radio Bursts, Gamma Ray Bursts or microlensing events. One possible explanation is that the plates have been subjected to an unknown type of contamination producing mainly point sources with of varying intensities along with some mechanism of concentration within a radius of ∼

10 arcmin on the plate. If contamination as an explanation can be fully excluded, another possibility is fast (t <0.5
<
0.5
s) solar reflections from objects near geosynchronous orbits. An alternative route to confirm the latter scenario is by looking for images from the First Palomar Sky Survey where multiple transients follow a line.

 
In 1957, astronomers of the Ohio State University started to scan the cosmos by means of a radio-telescope searching signs of radio transmissions from hypothetical extraterrestrial civilizations. Acting with an anthropocentric mind, they addressed their instruments to the stars Tau Ceti (spectral class G) and Epsilon Eridani (spectral class K) for being the nearest among those like our sun. In their search, they selected the wavelengths between 18 and 21 centimeters, corresponding to the spectral lines of the hydroxyl radical and the hydrogen, the band of electromagnetic spectrum named Water hole. They were looking for the existence of water in these star systems.

But water is not the only possible solvent for life chemistry, it all depends on environmental conditions. In 99 per cent of the cosmos, temperatures are so low that water can be replaced by liquid ammonia, liquid methane, liquid hydrogen fluoride, liquid nitrogen, liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen, liquid helium, or liquid argon. Even mercury and lava could be considered in environments with extreme temperatures and pressures. Carbon is also not essential, which can be replaced by phosphorus or silicon.

The search has continued to this day using increasingly sophisticated equipment capable of simultaneously monitoring a large number of radio frequencies, but so far they have found nothing.

It is naive to assume that intelligent creatures from a distant star system use such an unpractical communication as radio (limited to the speed of light in a universe full of interference) just because it was the best channel we had in 1957.

Interstellar distances are so huge that the transmissions of our most powerful equipment are 50,000,000 weaker when they reach the Centauri System four years later and 1,000,000,000 weaker when they reach, if ever, the center of the Galaxy within 26,000 years. It may be assumed that a more advanced civilization than ours has had time to develop something more efficient.

Science Fiction writers have 'solved' the issue by imagining a subspace transmitter using faster than light (FTL) technology, something that violates Einstein's established paradigm. Everyone knows this is impossible, but it will finally be built by someone who did not know it... or we will stay here until the Sun freezes!

The FTL hypothesis starts out from the assumption that technological progress has no upper limit. But we must consider the possibility that the human mind be incapable of solving the problem. Nor can we lift a ton of weight, fly, run at 100 mph, breath underwater, or see Uranus, the heat, or the bacteria... but we have found a way to build machines that do it for us.

Maybe Artificial Intelligence will uncover the secrets of the FTL.
 
KIC 8462852 has started to dim seemingly exactly on schedule for a 1574 day periodicity of transits. If these dips do pan out they would seemingly confirm this orbit as they would repeat for the third time the ‘transits’, with three repeats being the standard for confirmation. The video isn’t too bad but annoyingly gets sidetracked about half way through onto Project Galileo.

View: https://youtu.be/soy-_N-9UpY

Observing data here:

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852_Analysis/comments/pk8f4a/dip_confirmed_at_lco/
 
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Article looking at how SETI’s work is getting more difficult due to space junk as well as the increasing amount of technology that can produce spurious signals. At least for SETI it looks like a radio telescope on the far side of the moon would be as useful to them as it would be too general radio telescope astronomy.

The first observation at issue was potentially the most distant supernova ever observed. The paper describing it observed a flash in the near-infrared that coincided with the location of one of the Universe's first galaxies. If the flash originated there, the red shift caused by the intervening distance would mean that the original burst was in the UV range, suggesting it was the product of a supernova. That would mean we had observed the death of one of the first stars formed in the Universe, a potentially significant finding.

But since then, other papers have suggested that, giving the timing and source of the observations, the location would also have coincided with the position of a defunct Russian booster. And the odds of having watched a bit of space junk are considerably higher than the odds of us happening to be watching when a star that distant exploded. So, the papers argued that we probably haven't actually seen a supernova.

The researchers then checked the telescope's archives and found 15 blc1-like signals there as well, including one four days prior to their own observations. At least one of these 15 was clearly a local source, since it persisted even as the telescope was pointed at different targets. Finally, when the researchers searched archives of a recent project called turboSETI, they came up with another 111 blc1-like signals. Most of these signals had also been rejected as likely to be radio interference because they also showed up regardless of where the telescope was pointed.

While the researchers can't conclusively identify the source, they were able to determine that it was produced by interactions between two individual devices. In other words, the signal is likely to just be a technological accident, and in this case, at least one of the components happened to be switched on and off in a way that lined up with when the telescope was pointed at Proxima Centauri.


Analysis of the Breakthrough Listen signal of interest blc1 with a technosignature verification framework

Abstract
The aim of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is to find technologically capable life beyond Earth through their technosignatures. On 2019 April 29, the Breakthrough Listen SETI project observed Proxima Centauri with the Parkes ‘Murriyang’ radio telescope. These data contained a narrowband signal with characteristics broadly consistent with a technosignature near 982 MHz (‘blc1’). Here we present a procedure for the analysis of potential technosignatures, in the context of the ubiquity of human-generated radio interference, which we apply to blc1. Using this procedure, we find that blc1 is not an extraterrestrial technosignature, but rather an electronically drifting intermodulation product of local, time-varying interferers aligned with the observing cadence. We find dozens of instances of radio interference with similar morphologies to blc1 at frequencies harmonically related to common clock oscillators. These complex intermodulation products highlight the necessity for detailed follow-up of any signal of interest using a procedure such as the one outlined in this work.


A radio technosignature search towards Proxima Centauri resulting in a signal of interest

Abstract
The detection of life beyond Earth is an ongoing scientific pursuit, with profound implications. One approach, known as the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), seeks to find engineered signals (‘technosignatures’) that indicate the existence of technologically capable life beyond Earth. Here, we report on the detection of a narrowband signal of interest at ~982 MHz, recorded during observations towards Proxima Centauri with the Parkes Murriyang radio telescope. This signal, BLC1, has characteristics broadly consistent with hypothesized technosignatures and is one of the most compelling candidates to date. Analysis of BLC1—which we ultimately attribute to being an unusual but locally generated form of interference—is provided in a companion paper. Nevertheless, our observations of Proxima Centauri are a particularly sensitive search for radio technosignatures towards a stellar target.

 
Regarding the video I posted above, I have to take my hat off to the people observing this star and the fact that are giving up so much of their time over many years is a testament to them especially as I believe many of them are amateurs. I did raise my eyebrows at when he talked about getting JWST to observe the star as I really cannot see that happening any time soon if at all. I guess if the big dips did reappear in 4.3 years time then maybe they would have the data to make a case to the JWST team as that would seem to greatly lessen the collision model as a possible explanation.
 
Reporting on a new paper that has found 15 further stars that appear to be exhibiting the same behaviour as KIC8462852. There are two curious things about these 15 in that they all cluster in space around KIC8462852, and they all cluster in stellar type either being F or G class stars.

View: https://youtu.be/zSCN09SSRck


Here’s the paper:

 
Heavens above: Nasa enlists priest to prepare for an alien discovery

As space agencies launch new telescopes, rovers and probes to look for habitable planets and alien life beyond Earth, a British priest has been helping Nasa to understand how the discovery of extraterrestrials would change the way we see the universe.

The Rev Dr Andrew Davison, a priest and theologian at the University of Cambridge with a doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford, is among 24 theologians to have taken part in a Nasa-sponsored programme at the Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI) at Princeton in the US to assess how the world’s major religions would react to news that life exists on worlds beyond our own.
 
In terms of Lurkers...the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 did a defacto aerobrake such that it was to do a resonant return. If I had to do a X-Files type story...I'd have the Shuttle orbiter as Glomar II...sized for this Bracewell-not Hexagon...and MOL be a cover for a Titan III Gemini piloted by a terminally ill man who pushed it Earthwards after say, cutting it to size....Omuamua its booster.
 
Annoying how they have to use the hook of UFOs to sell this article even though ninety percent of it is about serious developments in SETI and only the first ten percent about UFOs. The constant desire by the media to conflate SETI with UFOs is a constant bugbear. The reporting I’ve seen of this article elsewhere is even worse for playing up the UFO angle.

 
Should we transmit another message to possible extraterrestrial intelligences in the Milky Way galaxy? Yes, say a team of scientists led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, who have developed a binary-coded message that contains images of humans, our cosmic address and a request to RSVP.

If it’s transmitted, this so-called “Beacon in the Galaxy” will follow a tradition begun in 1974 when scientists sent a message containing basic information about us and our planet into space using the now-defunct Arecibo radio telescope.

 
Never bought into that SETI thing... it was bold, but too many variables into a too big universe.
I prefer having 5000 exoplanets on hand.
The smart thing obviously is SETI acknowledging the above and listening to the exoplanets systems.
 
Should we transmit another message to possible extraterrestrial intelligences in the Milky Way galaxy? Yes, say a team of scientists led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, who have developed a binary-coded message that contains images of humans, our cosmic address and a request to RSVP.

If it’s transmitted, this so-called “Beacon in the Galaxy” will follow a tradition begun in 1974 when scientists sent a message containing basic information about us and our planet into space using the now-defunct Arecibo radio telescope.


If we were to transmit another message to SETI what sort of message would it consist of? and where would we aim the message to (Alpha Centauri would be my personal favourite as it has an Earth-type planet in the system), and what radio telescope would get the task as Arecibo is no more?
 
If we were to transmit another message to SETI what sort of message would it consist of? and where would we aim the message to (Alpha Centauri would be my personal favourite as it has an Earth-type planet in the system), and what radio telescope would get the task as Arecibo is no more?
If there were a technological civilization in Centauri system (and you most likely mean Proxima Centauri - there are no confirmed exoplanes around Alpha or Beta), we would already heard their transmissions.
 
If we were to transmit another message to SETI what sort of message would it consist of?
Well, prime numbers first, to firmly prove that they aren't dealing with natural phenomenon. Then rotation period of brightest pulsars, to establish spatial and time frame of reference. Then - the distance from those pulsars to Solar System. After which, a basic data about Solar System (number of planet, their rotation period in pulsar's frame of reference). The emphasis on the third planet would help to explain basic things about the Earth.
 
New paper on a proposed source location for the WOW signal.

An approximation to determine the source of the WOW! Signal

Abstract

In this paper it is analysed which of the thousands of stars in the WOW! Signal region could have the highest chance of being the real source of the signal, providing that it came from a star system similar to ours. A total of 66 G and K-type stars are sampled, but only one of them is identified as a potential Sun-like star considering the available information in the Gaia Archive. This candidate source, which is named 2MASS 19281982-2640123, therefore becomes an ideal target to conduct observations in the search for techno-signatures. Another two candidate stars have a luminosity error interval that includes the luminosity of the Sun, and 14 candidates more are also identified as potential Sun-like stars, but the estimations on their luminosity were unknown.


Interview with the paper’s author Alberto Caballero:

View: https://youtu.be/KLWnSAHylpU
 
Regarding the above. It sometimes seems like from a layman’s prospective that doing radio astronomy on the Earth is getting increasingly difficult. No wonder there is this idea for a radio telescope on the dark side of the moon.
 
Best place for any Telescope is fare side of the Moon
With a 3474 km tick sold frequency filter between noisy Earth and and Telescope
Full of craters to install bigger Radio Telescope as China has
and 14 day of night a dream for every astronomer with optical Telescope.

Until SpaceX start industrialisation of the Moon...
 
I only came across this theory of why the universe seems silent after seeing a review of a now out of print sci-fi book The Killer Star. Stephen Hawking apparently was a believer in this theory.

The Dark Forest Theory:

View: https://youtu.be/xAUJYP8tnRE
 
Best place for any Telescope is fare side of the Moon
With a 3474 km tick sold frequency filter between noisy Earth and and Telescope
Full of craters to install bigger Radio Telescope as China has
and 14 day of night a dream for every astronomer with optical Telescope.

Until SpaceX start industrialisation of the Moon...

The far side of the Moon is a great place for any kind of telescope, especially a radio telescope, but there's no reason to put it on the surface. Placing it in the L2 point would get rid of a lot of structural problems.
 

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