Breakthrough Listen uses radio telescopes such as the Parkes telescope in Australia or the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. These instruments regularly pick up signals that resemble signals from space, but are in fact due to local interference from Earth. In April and May 2019, the team picked up on something else: a narrow beam transmission around 980 MHz that lasted 30 hours. The signal, called BLC1, also seemed to shift so that it could come from a planet orbiting the star.
The team is preparing another paper for the scientific community to investigate, but there are a few reasons to be excited about this. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our Solar System, and in 2016, researchers announced the discovery of an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting the habitable zone. Later, astronomers discovered a second, larger planet further out in the solar system. So it is theoretically possible that there is life on any of those planets, especially those in the habitable zone.
The Green Bank Telescope used by Breakthrough Listen.
However, it is far too early to celebrate the discovery of alien life. BLC1 is one candidate signal to be analyzed, and if we are realistic, it is questionable whether intelligent aliens will live in the next solar system. The Milky Way Galaxy has an estimated 300 million exoplanets and is nearly 14 billion years old. It would be extremely unlikely to find another intelligent species co-existing with us, just a few light years away. If said aliens use radio frequency technology at the same time as we do, that’s an even greater coincidence.
This is not the first signal that can be interpreted as an artificial origin. The famous “Wow” signal detected by SETI researchers in 1977 is another example. It didn’t come out, but BLC1 could be the first serious contender in decades. If it isn’t, then there are many more stars. The only way we can find them is to keep looking.
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