About 4.2 light years from Earth, astronomers captured a radio signal near Proxima Centauri in search of advanced extraterrestrial intelligence.

The radio signal coming from the direction of the star closest to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, was detected by astronomers looking for traces of extraterrestrial life, the The Guardian. Proxima Centauri is located about 4.24 light years from Earth. Two planets have recently been identified near it: one is Proxima b, discovered in 2016, and the other is Proxima c, which was discovered last year.

The radio signal was picked up during a project called Breakthrough Listen, one of the investigations supported by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. The signal was leaked from a series of data recorded with the Parkes Observatory radio telescope, but the recording was not made now, it comes from April last year. However, reviewing the huge dataset takes a long time, which is why its analysis took so long.

The signal beam was detected in the 982 megahertz range, which is also strange because terrestrial devices like satellites don’t actually communicate at this wavelength. It may also be, of course, that the signal was caused by some natural process, but that remains to be seen.

The significance of the discovery is somewhat diminished by the fact that the signal has so far been detected by a single research team that has been excited by astronomers. Woohoo! compares it to a sign. The latter is a narrow band radio signal detected in 1977 that had characteristics that suggested a descent from a possible extraterrestrial civilization.

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