SETI@home spots unusual signal... or not

Posted by MacDood
David Pescovitz:
SETI@home has turned up an unexplained radio signal from 1000 light years away that's, well, unexplained. From New Scientist:

“It’s the most interesting signal from SETI@home,” says Dan Werthimer, a radio astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and the chief scientist for SETI@home. “We’re not jumping up and down, but we are continuing to observe it.”

Named SHGb02+14a, the signal has a frequency of about 1420 megahertz. This happens to be one of the main frequencies at which hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, readily absorbs and emits energy.

Some astronomers have argued that extraterrestrials trying to advertise their presence would be likely to transmit at this frequency, and SETI researchers conventionally scan this part of the radio spectrum.

Link

Update: The BBC followed up with a report quoting researchers who say that the news above was blown out of proportion and there is no signal. Nothing to hear here. Move along. (cue X-Files theme) Link [Boing Boing]