TRAPPIST Planets Targeted for Monitoring Potential Alien Radio Communications

If extraterrestrials are observing Earth, they could potentially pick up on the radio signals we send to Mars to operate our rovers. Astronomers have begun monitoring the nearby TRAPPIST-1 system to see if aliens are communicating between their own planets.

Earth has been emitting incidental radio signals for more than a century, but unlike what sci-fi suggests, these signals are relatively weak and spread out in space, making them difficult to detect from other planets. However, what about signals specifically designed to reach other worlds?

Exploring Our Solar Neighborhood

Humans have dispatched spacecraft throughout our solar neighborhood, with robots exploring Mars, orbiters observing various planets and the Sun, and even a few probes that have exited our solar system. Operating these missions requires strong, direct radio communications, and if you’re positioned just right, there’s a possibility you could detect some “spillover” from these signals with the appropriate equipment.

Researchers at Penn State and the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have applied this reasoning to other star systems to see if we can discover signs of alien civilizations. TRAPPIST-1, just 40 light-years away, is an ideal candidate for this investigation.

A Potential Hub for Extraterrestrial Life

This system consists of seven rocky, Earth-sized planets situated relatively close to each other, with some located in the habitable zone of their star. If intelligent life developed on one of these planets, it’s likely that it could have spread to others, enabling civilizations to exchange radio messages or control remote robots similar to our Mars rovers.

The optimal time to detect such signals would be when one planet passes in front of another from our viewpoint on Earth. The researchers refer to these occurrences as “planet-planet occultations” (PPOs). During these events, radio signals could “leak” around the planet, akin to sunlight bending around the Moon during an eclipse.

The team utilized the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) to observe the TRAPPIST-1 system for 28 hours. They focused on narrowband radio signals of specific strength originating from TRAPPIST-1 that occurred during PPOs to identify the most promising artificial signals.

After applying filters to millions of incoming radio detections, the team identified 11,127 candidate signals. Further analysis revealed that 2,264 of these occurred during PPO windows. Unfortunately, upon closer examination, none were determined to have an alien origin.

However, this doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Extended observations of this and other systems, using more advanced instruments, could eventually allow us to detect extraterrestrial communications.

“The methods and algorithms we developed for this project can be applied to other star systems, increasing our chances of discovering regular communications between planets beyond our solar system, if they exist,” said Nick Tusay, the study’s lead author.

Read the original article on: New Atlas

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