Drudge is carrying an item headlined “Mysterious signals from 1000 light years away,” which links to an article at NewScientist.Com.
The problem is that New Scientist, having been Drudged, has now Popularity Crashed. Their server is either so overloaded that it has shut down completely or is so swamped that it can’t respond effectively to all the hits it’s getting.
Been like that for hours.
I’ve been using Google and other search engines to try to turn up information on this story, but all I’ve been able to get thus far are some tiny scraps of data, not the complete text of the article.
If anyone can get the latter, you copy and paste it to me via e-mail?
Here’s what I’ve found out thus far: It appears that the Project SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) have found a signal coming from the area between the constellations of Pisces and Aries that appears to be artificial and appears to be about a thousand light years away.
Now, the great likelihood is not a genuine transmission originating from an alien civilization. Previously unknown signals have been found for decades, and they (thus far) have always turned out to either be natural phenomena (some objects in space emit radio signals naturally) or local artificial phenomena (like signals from Earth-orbiting satellites). One of tiny scrap o’information sites I found even mentioned that this one might be a telescope error.
In all likelihood, researchers will soon figure out what the signal is and that it falls into one of the above non-EBE categories. That’s what happens to most such signals in no time at all. This one has remained unresolved long enough for New Scientist to run a story about it, which means its origin is harder to track down than most.
I just with I could track down some signals originating from New Scientist’s web site.
UPDATE! I just got the text. Click the comments link to read it.
Too funny! I’ve been trying to get at it as well and was even going to send you a message once I got into the site to read the note!
So if this turns out to be the Asgard,oh wait there in another galaxy, well at least someone real, has God revealed himself to them? Or are they needing a Catholic.com interstellar cruise with Jimmy as head appolgist?
It could be an Asgard base in our galaxy. Let’s just hope it ain’t the Goa’uld!!!
BTW, finally got the text. Here ’tis!
———————-
Mysterious signals from 1000 light years away
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996341
by Eugenie Samuel Reich — In February 2003, astronomers involved in
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) pointed the
massive radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, at around 200
sections of the sky.
The same telescope had previously detected unexplained radio signals
at least twice from each of these regions, and the astronomers were
trying to reconfirm the findings. The team has now finished analysing
the data, and all the signals seem to have disappeared. Except one,
which has got stronger.
This radio signal, now seen on three separate occasions, is an enigma.
It could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon.
Or it could be something much more mundane, maybe an artefact of the
telescope itself.
But it also happens to be the best candidate yet for a contact by
intelligent aliens in the nearly six-year history of the SETI@home
project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions of
personal computers worldwide to sift through signals picked up by the
Arecibo telescope.
Absorb and emit
“It’s the most interesting signal from SETI@home,” says Dan Werthimer,
a radio astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and
the chief scientist for SETI@home. “We’re not jumping up and down, but
we are continuing to observe it.”
Named SHGb02+14a, the signal has a frequency of about 1420 megahertz.
This happens to be one of the main frequencies at which hydrogen, the
most common element in the universe, readily absorbs and emits energy.
Some astronomers have argued that extraterrestrials trying to
advertise their presence would be likely to transmit at this
frequency, and SETI researchers conventionally scan this part of the
radio spectrum.
SHGb02+14a seems to be coming from a point between the constellations
Pisces and Aries, where there is no obvious star or planetary system
within 1000 light years. And the transmission is very weak.
“We are looking for something that screams out ‘artificial’,” says UCB
researcher Eric Korpela, who completed the analysis of the signal in
April. “This just doesn’t do that, but it could be because it is
distant.”
[Unknown signature]
The telescope has only observed the signal for about a minute in
total, which is not long enough for astronomers to analyse it
thoroughly. But, Korpela thinks it unlikely SHGb02+14a is the result
of any obvious radio interference or noise, and it does not bear the
signature of any known astronomical object. That does not mean that
only aliens could have produced it. “It may be a natural phenomenon of
a previously undreamed-of kind like I stumbled over,” says Jocelyn
Bell Burnell of the University of Bath, UK.
It was Bell Burnell who in 1967 noticed a pulsed radio signal which
the research team at the time thought was from extraterrestrials but
which turned out to be the first ever sighting of a pulsar.
There are other oddities. For instance, the signal’s frequency is
drifting by between eight to 37 hertz per second. “The signal is
moving rapidly in frequency and you would expect that to happen if you
are looking at a transmitter on a planet that’s rotating very rapidly
and where the civilisation is not correcting the transmission for the
motion of the planet,” Korpela says.
This does not, however, convince Paul Horowitz, a Harvard University
astronomer who looks for alien signals using optical telescopes. He
points out that the SETI@home software corrects for any drift in
frequency.
[Fishy and puzzling]
The fact that the signal continues to drift after this correction is
“fishy”, he says. “If [the aliens] are so smart, they’ll adjust their
signal for their planet’s motion.”
The relatively rapid drift of the signal is also puzzling for other
reasons. A planet would have to be rotating nearly 40 times faster
than Earth to have produced the observed drift; a transmitter on Earth
would produce a signal with a drift of about 1.5 hertz per second.
What is more, if telescopes are observing a signal that is drifting in
frequency, then each time they look for it they should most likely
encounter it at a slightly different frequency. But in the case of
SHGb02+14a, every observation has first been made at 1420 megahertz,
before it starts drifting. “It just boggles my mind,” Korpela says.
The signal could be an artefact that, for some reason, always appears
to be coming from the same point in the sky. The Arecibo telescope has
a fixed dish reflector and scans the skies by changing the position of
its receiver relative to the dish.
When the receiver reaches a certain position, it might just be able to
reflect waves from the ground onto the dish and then back to itself,
making it seem as if the signal was coming from space.
“Perhaps there is an object on the ground near the telescope emitting
at about this frequency,” Korpela says. This could be confirmed by
using a different telescope to listen for SHGb02+14a.
[Possible fraud]
There is also the possibility of fraud by someone hacking the
SETI@home software to make it return evidence for an extraterrestrial
transmission. However, SHGb02+14a was seen on two different occasions
by different SETI@home users, and those calculations were confirmed by
others.
Then the signal was seen a third time by the SETI@home researchers.
The unusual characteristics of the signal also make it unlikely that
someone is playing a prank, Korpela says. “As I can’t think of any way
to make a signal like this, I can’t think of any way to fake it.”
David Anderson, director of SETI@home, remains sceptical but curious
about the signal. “It’s unlikely to be real but we will definitely be
re-observing it.” Bell Burnell agrees that it is worth persisting
with. “If they can see it four, five or six times it really begins to
get exciting,” she says.
It is already exciting for IT engineers Oliver Voelker of Logpoint in
Nuremberg, Germany and Nate Collins of Farin and Associates in
Madison, Wisconsin, who found the signal.
Collins wonders how his bosses will react to company computers finding
aliens. “I might have to explain a little further about just how much
I was using [the computers],” he says.
k, I’m spooked out.
Let’s just say for a moment that extra-terrestrial intelligence is discovered. How would this affect Catholicism?
Do they have immortal souls?
Would Jesus have died for them too? Are they fallen as well, and in need of salvation? Did Jesus incarnate (taking on their alien nature) himself on their world too. What if they are not fallen…then did we ruin the universe for them? (Am I understanding Catholic teaching correctly that it is not just we that have a fallen nature, but that the universe itself is not what it was supposed to be?) It doesn’t quite sound just for them to have to go through that.
Well, at the very least, if they are not fallen then we don’t have to worry that they’ll come after us and exact revenge from us for the Sin of Adam. If they are not fallen then they should be very peaceful and holy.
On Coast to Coast AM (Art Bell redux) last night, they had an astronomer from SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) on to explain what happened.
That group is not the group based at UC Berkeley which has linked millions(?) of home computers to do an analysis of data from the Arecibo, Puerto Rico, redio telescope and which was reported to find signs of life.
To make a long story short. The reporter for New Scientist magazine got the whole thing wrong. She asked if they had any “interesting” things that they had found and the most recent was pointed out to her.
She wrote about it.
What she didn’t know is that each January, they take 200 of these “interesting” items and subject them to further investigation. So far, non of them have proven to be anything other than natural phenomena.
Ah, it’s all bosh. We’re alone in the universe.
As I think Asimov once said we are either alone in the universe or there are others, either way is awe inspiring.
When I read the article Jimmy posted it occurred to me that beings who look like large black bugs and have acid for blood would probably play with the frequency drifting they are seeing. Glottal stop coming up: Uh-oh!
Well darn! No Asgard!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3621608.stm
Actually, I think the proposition that we’re alone in the universe is the much more exciting one.
It’s a damn beacon from a long time ago, say, antedelluvian. Maybe one of Tubal-Cain’s toys.
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