According to the most recent study, a recently found supernova 21 million light-years from Earth can serve as a beacon for aliens to communicate. The researchers from the University of Washington have focused their attention on SN 2023ixf, which is located in the Pinwheel galaxy. The supernova is the closest star explosion witnessed by humans in over a decade.
The scientists’ most recent proposal is based on the idea that at least 100 supernovas are 300 light years distant from Earth, and they are currently looking into whether they are surrounded by inhabited planets.
If extraterrestrials see the supernova, they would most likely exploit it to draw attention to themselves in order to communicate with other worlds.
Found a Type II supernova
The discovery of SN 2023ixf by the National Astronomical Observatory in Gozo allowed scientists to determine that it was a Type II supernova, which had formerly been a star as massive as eight times the size of the sun and had been a Type I supernova.
The group, led by James Davenport, utilised the “SETI ellipsoid” to conduct their investigation into a region of space with the potential for extraterrestrial civilizations to have enough time to see an astronomical event.
The zone in this study contains a potential inclusion of 100 neighbouring stars. Astronomers in North Carolina and Virginia are using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) to examine the stars and determine if they are surrounded by habitable planets.
The work was published in arXiv. “We intend to revisit the Ellipsoid once a month for the next few months as new stars enter the sample, and are open to synchronising our observations with other multiwavelength facilities,” it noted.
Davenport acknowledged in an interview with New Scientist that there is a lower likelihood that he and his team would make contact with aliens, but he still thinks it is worthwhile to try.
The worst scenario, in his opinion, is for a signal to arrive and for us to fail to detect it because we neglected to look. Andrew McCarthy, a renowned astrophotographer known for his stunning images of space, was one of the first non-military people to witness the historic event. He posted an animation that had multiple photographs taken of the Pinwheel Galaxy and displayed a flashing light in the area that represented the star’s destruction.
McCarthy tweeted, “I created this animation using the colour data I already had on this galaxy and layered roughly 10 minutes worth of shots.
You can see how near some nebulae in the arm are to the explosion, he continued. “Just picture the view from there” McCarthy said in an interview with Daily Mail that he had been photographing the Pinwheel Galaxy for months before the star erupted.
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