HD 164595 lies near the source of an interesting new signal. CNN is a popular source of information:
Astronomers engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) are training their instruments on a star around 94 light years from Earth after a very strong signal was detected by a Russian telescope.
An international team of researchers is now examining the radio signal and its star, HD 164595 — described in a paper by Italian astronomer Claudio Maccone and others as a “strong candidate for SETI” — in the hopes of determining its origin.
“The signal from HD 164595 is intriguing, because it comes from the vicinity of a sun-like star, and if it’s artificial, its strength is great enough that it was clearly made by a civilization with capabilities beyond those of humankind,” astronomer Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, which searches for life beyond Earth, tells CNN.
Whenever a strong signal is detected, “it’s a good possibility for some nearby civilization to be detected,” Maccone tells CNN.
For a more technical approach to the phenomenon there is Paul Gilster Centauri Dreams:
A candidate signal for SETI is a welcome sign that our efforts in that direction may one day pay off. An international team of researchers has announced the detection of “a strong signal in the direction of HD164595” in a document now being circulated through contact person Alexander Panov. The detection was made with the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, in the Karachay–Cherkess Republic of Russia, not far from the border with Georgia in the Caucasus.
The signal was received on May 15, 2015, 18:01:15.65 (sidereal time), at a wavelength of 2.7 cm. The estimated amplitude of the signal is 750 mJy.
No one is claiming that this is the work of an extraterrestrial civilization, but it is certainly worth further study. Working out the strength of the signal, the researchers say that if it came from an isotropic beacon, it would be of a power possible only for a Kardashev Type II civilization. If it were a narrow beam signal focused on our Solar System, it would be of a power available to a Kardashev Type I civilization. The possibility of noise of one form or another cannot be ruled out, and researchers in Paris led by Jean Schneider are considering the possible microlensing of a background source by HD164595. But the signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target.
The mJy is a mega-Jansky, a unit of spectral irradiance, “… equivalent to 10−26 watts persquare metre per hertz.” A Kardashev Type categorizes civilizations and their energy usages:
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization‘s level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to use for communication.[1] The scale has three designated categories:
- A Type I civilization – also called planetary civilization – can use and store energy which reaches its planet from the neighboring star.
- A Type II civilization can harness the energy of the entire star (the most popular hypothetic concept being the Dyson sphere—a device which would encompass the entire star and transfer its energy to the planet).
The scale is hypothetical, and regards energy consumption on a cosmic scale. It was proposed in 1964 by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev. Various extensions of the scale have since been proposed, including a wider range of power levels (types 0, IV and V) and the use of metrics other than pure power.
Isotropic might be summarized as unfocused, as could be guessed from the context.
Credit: N. N. Bursov, et al, via Centauri Dreams
All we have is a signal that has low, but non-zero, probability of being just random noise. The reports I’ve read do not discuss whether the signal is constant or time or just a single blip, but a chart from Centauri Dreams suggests a blip, if I understand the scale properly.
Exciting! (Or, as the Arts Editor says, Nerdgasm!)
