this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
65 points (97.1% liked)

science

28195 readers
30 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

dart board;; science bs

rule #1: be kind

lemmy.world rules

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
laverabe@lemmy.world
m3t00@lemmy.world
Joleee@lemmy.world
DeadPand@midwest.social
laverabe@lemmy.zip
65
Why SETI Might Have Been Missing Alien Signals (www.seti.org)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by kalkulat@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

"Stellar activity and plasma turbulence near a transmitting planet can broaden an otherwise ultra-narrow signal, spreading its power across more frequencies and making it more difficult to detect in traditional narrowband searches."

Science paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae3d33

Review article: https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/10/seti_admits_its_search_for/

Broadening of specral lines info: http://www.hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Atomic/broaden.html

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I think the real problem with SETI is its passive nature. It is merely looking for signals that may be from extraterrestrial intelligences passively.

I quite like the idea of Active SETI where we would be sending our own signal and looking for a reply. Of course either way would also have the problem of time. It would take a while to receive a signal. So long that its entirely possible by the time anyone got it, the people that sent it are already gone.