Astronomers are continuing to monitor a nearby red dwarf star after detecting unusual radio signals apparently coming from the star. It is hoped that additional observations will help to determine the source of the signals, which so far haven’t been explained.
The signals were first heard on May 12, 2017 by astronomers using the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. They seemed to be coming from a nearby red dwarf star called Ross 128, which is only 11 light-years from Earth (the 12th closest star to our Solar System).
“The signals consisted of broadband quasi-periodic nonpolarized pulses with very strong dispersion-like features,” said Abel Mendez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico.
Mendez also noted that the signals did not appear to be earthly interference, saying “We believe that the signals are not local radio frequency interferences (RFI) since they are unique to Ross 128, and observations of other stars immediately before and after did not show anything similar.”
Read the rest of my article on OMNI.
Anyone else read this & look at the picture accompanying it & think immediately of the movie “Battleship”? (Yes, yes, I know that antenna array was in Hawaii!). One of my favorite SF movies but I’d as soon not have it happen in real time 🙂