Slashdot Mirror
No, SETI Has Not Detected Alien Signals From Space
The Bad Astronomer writes "Rumors are going around that SETI astronomers have detected possible alien signals from space. Bottom line: signals were detected when the Green Bank Telescope was pointed at target planets discovered by Kepler, but the signals are almost certainly interference from man-made satellites orbiting the Earth. This happens pretty often, so we need to be aware that these kinds of false positives pop up."
If you move a thousand miles and the source is a thousand light years away, the angular deviation is almost precisely zero.
But if you move a thousand miles and the source is ten miles away, you're basically moving out of the source's way.
So wouldn't you expect the signal to go away for a man-made satellite, and stay for an alien signal? That's the precise opposite of what they're saying.
Side lobes. Radio transmitter antennas typically do not radiate in a perfectly spherical, cow shaped arrangement. There are strong lobes and weak (side lobes). If you track the signal through space, you should get a pretty good idea what the shape really is. You can compare that to the generalized, known shapes of the antenna radiation patterns are on various spacecrafts and get a pretty good idea if it's either a satellite or the most godawful giant radio transmitter the universe has ever seen.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
From those of is with speech issues, "Fuck You"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on