Radio scans find no alien tech from the latest interstellar comet
SETI’s seven-hour search found nearly 74 million narrow-band signals, but only more than 200 traced to Earth technology or satellites.
- The SETI Institute announced Wednesday that extensive radio scans of the interstellar visitor Atlas found no signs of otherworldly technology. Scientists confirmed the comet is entirely natural, dismissing unsubstantiated speculation about intelligent life.
- Discovered last summer, Atlas is the third known object from a faraway star to enter our solar system. Scientists estimate the celestial iceball is 11 billion years old, twice as old as the sun.
- During seven hours of observations in July, SETI filtered nearly 74 million signals down to 200. These were all "traced back to technology on the surface of the Earth or our own Earth-orbiting satellites."
- Lead author Sofia Sheikh and her team noted that NASA's Voyager spacecraft will one day become interstellar objects. This existence proof validates humanity's search for distant technological signatures as scientifically sound.
- According to Valeria Garcia Lopez of Furman University, these results "show how realistic it is to detect a signal with the technology we have today." Continuing searches for technosignatures remains important despite null findings.
31 Articles
31 Articles
Radio scans find no evidence of alien tech from interstellar comet 3I/Atlas
The SETI Institute said Wednesday that extensive radio scans by its telescope in Northern California found no signs of otherworldly technology from our solar system’s latest interstellar visitor.
Interstellar object 3I/ATLAS reveals no technosignatures in seven-hour radio scan
Scientists at the SETI Institute recently searched for technological signals from 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object observed in our solar system. Using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Northern California, the team scanned a wide range of radio frequencies for signs of extraterrestrial technology and found none, as expected based on other astronomical observations showing that the object exhibits natural comet-like composition and behavior. The paper is published in The Astronomical Journal.
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