Mobile communication towers represent a relatively new but growing contributor to the total radio-leakage associated with planet Earth. In new research, astronomers from the University of Mauritius and the University of Manchester investigated the overall power contribution of mobile communication towers to the Earth’s radio leakage budget, as seen from three nearby stellar systems: HD 95735, Barnard’s star, and Alpha Centauri A. They found that the mobile tower leakage is periodic, direction dependent, and could not currently be detected by a nearby alien civilization located within 10 light-years of the Earth, using instrumentation with a sensitivity similar to the Green Bank Telescope.
“The goal of search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is to discover evidence of intelligent life beyond the Earth by looking for so-called techno-signatures — artificially generated signals that are not produced by nature,” said University of Mauritius astronomer Ramiro Saide and colleagues.
“Unfortunately, all signals detected by SETI radio experiments to date have not been attributable to an intelligent civilization, other than our own.”
“In principle, SETI surveys need to be sensitive to a wide range of parameter space — this is due to our ignorance regarding some very basic aspects of the signal we are looking for — including the timing of any transmissions, their location on the sky and their central frequency.”
“In parallel with the search for signs of intelligent life, the topic of exoplanets has had a major impact on the possible incidence of extraterrestrial life in our Galaxy, as we understand more about the conditions on these planetary systems and their potential habitability.”
“Future advances in observing capabilities from space and on the ground have brought up new and intriguing prospects in the search for extraterrestrial life.”
“Most SETI surveys are optimized to detect narrow-band signals from powerful beacons,”…
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