Strange radio signal fired from nearby star is ‘serious candidate’ for proof of alien life, scientists say
ALIEN hunting astronomers are investigating a strange radio wave emission that seems to have come from a nearby star.
Proxima Centauri is our Solar System's closest star and is located just over 4 light years away.
With today's current technology it would still take at least 6,300 years to get there, according to .
The star appears to have produced a narrow beam of radio waves that was then picked up by the Parkes telescope in Australia.
This was during 30 hours of observation work done by the telescope last year in April and May.
Scientists are still analysing the radio wave beam to try and workout what caused it.
They reportedly said: "“It is the first serious candidate since the ‘Wow! signal’".
"We’ve been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities.
"If there is intelligent life there, it would almost certainly have spread much more widely across the galaxy.
"The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality."
Despite this he did add: "But I’d love to be proved wrong."
What is the Breakthrough Listen project?
Scientists want to know if something is out there...
- The Breakthrough Listen project was set up to search for intelligent alien life in the Universe
- It was launched in January 2016 by famous experts like Stephen Hawking
- The project should run for around 10 years
- It is funded by $100 million (£79,500,000) and special telescope facilities have set aside thousands of hours for it
- Breakthrough Listen is considered to be the most comprehensive alien searching project to date
- The project makes radio wave observations from two state of the art telescopes and visible light observations from another
- It aims to observe one million nearby stars and the centres of 100 galaxies
- So far, it hasn't found any signs of intelligent life but there are still many more stars to search
In other space news, ESA researchers think they've spotted an angel on Mars.
A satellite that can look inside buildings at any time of day has been launched.
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