This mysterious space signal is (probably) not from aliens

[bornagainathiest]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/07/19/this-mysterious-space-signal-is-probably-not-from-aliens/?utm_term=.ecd065c1429d

 

This mysterious space signal is (probably) definitely  not from aliens

[pantheory]

If they never see the signal again in the same location I would expect the mystery will never be solved.

[bornagainathiest]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/07/19/this-mysterious-space-signal-is-probably-not-from-aliens/?utm_term=.ecd065c1429d

 

By triangulating their data, they concluded that the signal most likely comes from a geostationary satellite. These crafts orbit the Earth around the equator, and Ross 128 looks close to the celestial equator in our sky, which would explain why the signal only appeared when Arecibo was trained on the star. This explanation also addresses why the frequency of the signal matches the that of transmissions from satellites. 

[pantheory]

Ah, too bad. I hoped the signal would have had more exotic explanations such as real FRB's (fast radio bursts),  GRB's (gamma ray bursts) absorbed by the atmosphere then re-emitted at a lower frequency, etc.  But it's cool that scientists figured it out quickly enough to quell further wild speculation.

[Thurisaz]

Reading that, once again, I wonder why the astronomer gang is so easily fooled by satellites. I mean, if a mysterious signal comes from at least close to where the ring of geostationary orbit runs along, can't they just say to themselves "Okay let's wait an hour, Earth will have revolved on a bit then, if it IS a satellite we'll NOT get the signal again from the same direction"?

 

(Of course SECRET satellites of the espionage kind or similar would be another thing... oh well)

Of course I'm a layman regarding astronomy but still... I can't stop wondering. Paging BAA, where am I wrong here?

 

[bornagainathiest]

1 hour ago, Thurisaz said:

Reading that, once again, I wonder why the astronomer gang is so easily fooled by satellites. I mean, if a mysterious signal comes from at least close to where the ring of geostationary orbit runs along, can't they just say to themselves "Okay let's wait an hour, Earth will have revolved on a bit then, if it IS a satellite we'll NOT get the signal again from the same direction"?

 

(Of course SECRET satellites of the espionage kind or similar would be another thing... oh well)

Of course I'm a layman regarding astronomy but still... I can't stop wondering. Paging BAA, where am I wrong here?

 

 

Hi Thuriasz.

 

I understand your confusion.

Some satellites are in geostationary orbits...  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit ...which means that they move at the same rate as which the Earth turns beneath them.  The result of these two motions is that they are always 'locked' in the same place above the Earth.  This place has to be on the equator, btw.  In the case of this mysterious signal, it just so happened that the star in question (more or less) lined up with where a certain satellite was located above the Earth, in it's geostationary orbit.

 

That help?

 

 

[Thurisaz]

Yeah I do get how, if you're looking at a spot close to the "orbit ring", you can accidentally pick up a satellite instead. But if you know you're looking into that direction, should it not always be a good idea to look at least twice in case you happened to indeed also look at one of those satellites? If the astro gang got seriously confused, that sounds to me that either they had so much bad luck that they picked up the same thing repeatedly, or they didn't just look twice with a certain time between their glances. Of course that's just my impression, something makes me sure it's more complicated than that...

(And of course, satellites which are not in geosynchronous orbit are another beast anyway... but in this case geostationary was explicitly mentioned so I'll focus on that one )