It is one of the most vexing questions facing humans. No, not is Joe Biden actually dead, but are we alone in the universe! Depending on who you ask and either their religious affiliation or personal experience, the answer could be yes, no, or ”I done been abducted by one”. That is mostly in West Virginia.
As science and technology improve, our ability to peer deeper into the universe improves as well. No longer do we have to find the tallest hilltop and squint at the skies. With advanced radio telescopes and deep space probes we are poking around parts of the cosmos we only dreamed about a few decades ago.
Whether that is a good thing or bad thing remains to be seen, but recently some researchers claim to have found ‘coherent’ radio signals from a planet that may be able to support life. not ours, but intelligent life possibly. Check this out.
Astronomers are one step closer to learning whether there is life beyond Earth, following the discovery of an exoplanet that’s able to emit a “coherent” radio signal.
A magnetic field on a planet is the first sign it’s capable of being habitable as it prevents radiation.
https://twitter.com/newzandernews/status/1643317642994892803?s=61&t=42OPdxgfzouMrmsukStEyQ
On Earth, our magnetic field extends from the molten iron in the planet’s core out into space and protects life from cosmic radiation and charged particles released from the Sun.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune also have magnetic fields, however, they’re all much stronger than Earth’s.
It’s unclear if any aliens would find any of our radio signals “coherent”. Considering the state of music and entertainment and politics in the world, they might just assume we have no magnetic field, and we are all low functioning bipeds. That wouldn’t be too far from the truth, minus the magnetic fields.
Many of our very own planets have very strong magnetic fields but obviously aren’t hospitable to life based on their temperature and composition. Kind of like Brownsville, Texas.
Now, researchers believe they’ve uncovered an alien planet that could have its own magnetic field, indicating it could be supporting extraterrestrial beings.
In a paper published to Nature Astronomy journal, astrophysicists found rocky planet YZ Ceti was deflecting repeated radio signals from the star it orbits around.
Researchers Sebastian Pineda and Jackie Villadsen discovered the signals with the help of a radio telescope.
“We saw the initial burst and it looked beautiful,”
“When we saw it again, it was very indicative that, okay, maybe we really have something here.”
After further investigation, the pair came up with the theory that the planet, which is about 12 light years away, had an Earth-like field that was interacting with its star to generate the signal.
However, due to its invisibility, it has proven challenging to determine whether the distant planet actually has its own magnetic field.
“What we’re doing is looking for a way to see them,” Professor Villadsen said.
“If the planet has a magnetic field and it plows through enough star stuff, it will cause the star to emit bright radio waves.”
I don’t know what any of that means either, but it does give at least a faint possibility that inhabitable planets are out there, waiting for Greta Thunberg and the rest of the climate change people to arrive and save their planet too.
Very interesting stuff, and considering the uptick in sightings and odd activity in our own solar system, my guess is sooner rather than later we are going to have our answer for sure.
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