Something strange is happening to a star near the sun. A mysterious radio signal is coming from Proxima Centauri, which is not visible to the naked eye from Earth. Although obscure for us to see from Earth, it is a cosmic rock only 2.2 light-years away. A mysterious clue is coming out of the star, which was found in archival data collected last year.
A sign of this fall was discovered and appears to be coming from the direction of Proxima Centauri. So far, researchers have been unable to dismiss the signal as an Earth interference. While there are definite possibilities in investigating a strange signal coming from a nearby star, scientists are wary of the project, much remains to be done.
Rev. Andrew Simian, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, says the signal has properties that allow it to pass a lot of checks so far, and that can’t be explained. The strangest aspect of the signal is that it has a highly compressed radio spectrum of 982 MHz. It is a spectral range that is usually free of man-made satellites and any transmissions from spacecraft.
Researchers say that there is no natural way to compress electromagnetic energy waves in a single band frequency. Simian says that plasma physics may have some unknown foreign function that may be part of the signal. However, he acknowledges that so far, the only known source for such a signal is technical.
The signal was invented by a project called Breakthrough Lease, led by Simenian and backed by tech billionaire Yuri Milner. The goal of the project is to purchase time on worldwide radio telescopes, especially to find evidence of technological culture in the vastness of the universe.
