Is it aliens? Scientists detect more mysterious radio signals from distant galaxy

LINK


Researchers using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia announced the detection of 15 pulses of radio energy from an object known to the astronomy community as FRB 121102.

quote:

---

For the past decade, scientists have been puzzling over powerful, millisecond-long flashes of energy from deep space. Some scientists think these “fast radio bursts,” or FRBs, come from natural sources, such as newborn neutron stars or black holes. Others think they could be signals from alien civilizations.

---

quote:

---

...a $100-million initiative known as Breakthrough Listen used artificial intelligence to detect dozens of additional FRBs coming from FRB 121102, an as-yet-uncharacterized source in a galaxy 3 billion light-years from Earth.

The work is the first step in the initiative’s grander plans for using AI to find hidden patterns in the bigger sea of cosmic signals that come our way — research that could finally provide an answer to that eternal question: Are we alone in the universe?

---

Essentially, researchers will use a technique called "deep learning" to train AI to look for unusual signals incoming from space.

While the signals coming from FRB 121102 can't yet be determined to be natural or artificial, the intrigue caused by fast radio bursts is spurring the rapid development of AI that can solve this question as well as begin to intensely look for alien broadcasts.

Are we just a few years (months, even?) from finding the first extraterrestrial civilization?