{"id":18879,"date":"2017-07-13T18:05:48","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T10:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/seemingly-strange-radio-signals-from-a-red-dwarf-star-spark-interest-at-arecibo\/"},"modified":"2017-07-13T18:05:48","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T10:05:48","slug":"seemingly-strange-radio-signals-from-a-red-dwarf-star-spark-interest-at-arecibo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/seemingly-strange-radio-signals-from-a-red-dwarf-star-spark-interest-at-arecibo\/","title":{"rendered":"Seemingly strange radio signals from a red dwarf star spark interest at Arecibo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Arecibo
The 1,000-foot radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory played a role in the movie \u201cContact.\u201d (UPRA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope at Puerto Rico\u2019s Arecibo Observatory will take a closer look at a red dwarf star known as Ross 128 after picking up what one astronomer said were \u201csome very peculiar signals\u201d during a 10-minute observing session in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe signals consisted of broadband quasi-periodic non-polarized pulses with very strong dispersion-like features,\u201d Abel Mendez, a planetary astrobiologist at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, said in an online advisory. Mendez is also director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory.<\/p>\n

Mendez said the signal did not appear to be earthly interference, \u201csince they are unique to Ross 128, and observations of other stars immediately before and after did not show anything similar.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the most likely explanations for the signals are that they\u2019re flare-type emissions from the star, or emissions from another object in the field of view, or a radio burst from a satellite in high orbit.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Ross 128 is nearly 11 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. (PHL @ UPR Arecibo \/ Aladin Sky Atlas)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEach of the possible explanations has their own problems,\u201d Mendez wrote. He added, \u201cIn case you are wondering, the recurrent aliens hypothesis is at the bottom of many other better explanations.\u201d<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, Ross 128, also known as FI Virginis, has served as the setting for several science-fiction stories and video games about alien encounters. It\u2019s a little less than 11 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.<\/p>\n

The new round of Arecibo observations is scheduled for Sunday, but Mendez said \u201cthere are no guarantees\u201d that those observations will solve the mystery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a Pi\u00f1a Colada ready to celebrate if the signals result to be astronomical in nature,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

Arecibo will also take part in a multi-telescope campaign to observe Barnard\u2019s Star, a low-mass red dwarf that\u2019s less than 6 light-years away. The Red Dots campaign aims to look for evidence of planets around nearby red dwarfs. The target stars also include Proxima Centauri, which was found to harbor at least one potentially habitable planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1,000-foot radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory played a role in the movie \u201cContact.\u201d (UPRA Photo) The 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope at Puerto Rico\u2019s Arecibo Observatory will take a closer look at a red dwarf star known as Ross 128 after picking up what one astronomer said were \u201csome very peculiar signals\u201d during a 10-minute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4409,5122,1874,3621,2001,5126,5307],"class_list":["post-18879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aliens","tag-arecibo","tag-astrobiology","tag-proxima-centauri","tag-radio-astronomy","tag-red-dots","tag-ross-128"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}