Radio signals sent between TRAPPIST-1 planets?

The TRAPPIST-1 solar system, located just 41 light-years from Earth, has a small, modest-temperature star, as well as seven rocky, Earth-like planets. Some of these planets are within the habitable zone around the star, which is the orbital strip in which the heat coming from the star is just enough to allow the existence of liquid water on the surface of the worlds located there. Since liquid water is a fundamental ingredient for life, any planet that can possess it is a clear candidate to host life and, perhaps, intelligent life.

This makes TRAPPIST-1 an obvious place to look for signs of extraterrestrial life and even telltale signs of intelligent alien life.

Scientists have tested a new technique that allows scrutinizing planets outside our solar system that are properly aligned with each other and with the Earth to detect, if they are being emitted, radio signals similar, for example, to those used for interplanetary communications. between ground monitoring stations and the robotic rovers that circulate on the surface of Mars.

The team, made up of specialists from Pennsylvania State University and the SETI Institute, both entities in the United States, spent 28 hours tracking the TRAPPIST-1 solar system, in an attempt to capture possible radio communications signals between planets of said system.

The team, led by Nick Tusay from Pennsylvania State University, used the ATA (Allen Telescope Array) observatory for this work.

Artistic recreation of the concept of interplanetary communications between worlds of the same solar system, which can also be captured from another solar system using the new technique. (Image: Zayna Sheikh. CC BY-NC-ND)

Although the team did not find any evidence of extraterrestrial technology, the search has served to test the new technique for searching for alien intelligent signals in real conditions.

Tusay and his colleagues describe the technical details of the new technique and how they have used it, in the academic journal The Astronomical Journal, under the title “A Radio Technosignature Search of TRAPPIST-1 with the Allen Telescope Array.” (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)