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Mysterious ‘alien beacon’ was false alarm

Radio signal seemed to originate from the star Proxima Centauri, and provided a helpful drill for future searches.
  1. Alexandra Witze
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A radio signal detected by an Australian telescope in 2019, which seemed to be coming from the star closest to the Sun, was not from aliens, researchers report today in two papers in Nature Astronomy1,2.

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Nature 599, 20-21 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02931-7

References

  1. Smith, S. et al. Nature Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01479-w (2021).

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  2. Sheikh, S. Z. et al. Nature Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01508-8 (2021).

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  3. Anglada-Escudé, G. et al. Nature 536, 437–440 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Petroff, E. et al. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 451, 3933–3940 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

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