Hunting for aliens: scientists trying to locate radio signals in faraway star system

Scientists have spent 28 hours scanning the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, which is expected to host alien life, searching for radio signals.

The TRAPPIST-1 planetary system is 41 light-years away from the Earth, which makes it unreachable with any space flight technology known to man.

Despite this, it attracts the imagination of astronomers, who believe it might be home to extraterrestrial life. TRAPPIST-1 consists of seven planets orbiting around a red dwarf star and highly resembles our solar system.

Three of the planets are located in an area known by scientists as the “Goldilocks zone,” where it is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist. Their location in this part of the planetary system makes the planets strong candidates for hosting life.

Scientists at the SETI Institute and Penn State University have put these theories to the test. Founded in 1984, the SETI Institute has been working on searching for extraterrestrial life by scanning the cosmos for signals that are not of human origin.

According to a press release by the institute, scientists spent 28 hours scanning the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system in search of possible radio signals transmitted by alien technology.

They used the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) to search for signs of life. This attempt was the longest single-target search for radio signals from TRAPPIST-1.

Specifically, the scientists were looking for planet-planet occultations (PPOs). When one planet moves in front of another, radio signals sent between them could leak and be detected from Earth if intelligent life existed on the exoplanet.

During their search, the scientists detected millions of frequencies across a wide range. Unfortunately, none proved to be of non-human origin.

Despite the failure to find alien life, scientists believe that their search provides a valuable lesson for future alien hunting operations, as searching for PPOs could increase the chance of detecting them.

“This research shows we are getting closer to detecting radio signals similar to the ones we send into space,” said Nick Tusay, a graduate student research fellow at Penn State University.

“With better equipment, like the upcoming Square Kilometer Array (SKA), we might soon be able to detect signals from an alien civilization communicating with its spacecraft.”