Paul Gilster of the Tau Zero Foundation, which conducts interstellar research, said that if the signal was artificial, its strength suggested it would have to come from a civilization more advanced than our own. HD 164595 just is a star just a tad smaller than our Sun (0.99 solar masses), with the exact same metallicity.
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HD 164595 is known to have at least one planet in its orbit.
Gilster says the astronomers made the observation with the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, in southern Russian Federation.
On August 30, 2016 there appeared a number of reports in different mass media on possible detection of a radio signal at RATAN-600 associated with the activity of an extraterrestrial civilization; in this connection, we consider it necessary to make an official comment.
While the findings have generated buzz, not everyone is impressed with the evidence. But now, an global team of scientists from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) may have just found what I needed. According to Gizmodo, they will be up for discussion on September 27, when the International Academy of Astronautics’ Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (IAA SETI) permanent committee meets. That’s where Elon Musk will reveal his plans to colonize Mars.
Before you get too excited, it’s unlikely that this signal will turn out to be aliens.
“There are other possibilities for a wide-band signal such as this, and they’re caused by natural sources”. If the signal was broadcast in all directions, then it’d have to be powered by 10 billion billion watts, according to Shostak.
However, without a follow-up detection of the signal or a confirmation, SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak said that the true origin of the signal could never be found.
So far, however, they have not detected any unusual signals from the star, Shostak said. “We failed to see any signal greater than 0.1 Janskys in a bandwidth of 100 MHz, whereas the claim by the Russians was a signal of 0.75 Janskys”.
Shostak said that the institute is still looking into the signal, but that he does not think it is a significant discovery.
Gilster said he understood the Russian team that picked up the Hercules signal had spent the past year analyzing and confirming its data.
On Wednesday, the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences made a decision to step up and clarify its findings, including the fact that it had already determined that the signal was likely not alien in origin after all.
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“That is hundreds of times more energy than all the sunlight falling on Earth, and would obviously require power sources far beyond any we have”, he said.
