A group of researchers from the University of California think extraterrestrial life may contact Earth as early as 2029.
NASA routinely transmitted radio waves to the Pioneer 12 probe in 2002 to send data and make sure that communication was established.
Researchers Think Extraterrestrials Intercepted Earth Communication
Since transmission expands out when they come into contact with an object, this signal also made it to a star some 27 light-years away from our planet.
The UC researchers believe that extraterrestrials may have intercepted this signal and called back to Earth.
To map out how the signals may have dispersed when transmitted into the cosmos, the study analyzed signals sent from Earth to Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons.
In order to download scientific data and telemetry data, these spacecraft have interacted with the Deep Station Network (DSN) radio antennae.
According to a study that was just published in the Journal of the Publications of the Astronomical Society.
The spacecraft and interstellar space are reached via DSN’s outgoing transmissions.
The Deep Station Network is a global network of enormous radio antennas maintained by NASA to assist missions for both Earth-orbiting and interplanetary spacecraft.
The researchers found evidence of at least one-star encounter in signals to Pioneer 10, Pioneer 10, and Pioneer 11.
Pioneer 10’s broadcasts only came into contact with one white dwarf star in 2002.
By the year 2313, Pioneer 10 will communicate with 222 stars.
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Potential Alien Life May Return Message in 2029
The earliest return transmission we can anticipate is in 2029, the scientists stated in the report.
The research team predicts that a back message from any extraterrestrial life orbiting this dead star might reach us no earlier than 2029.
Just let’s hope that if any extraterrestrials did receive our signals, they wouldn’t respond by eating, enslaving, or attacking us, infecting us with diseases, carrying out a disastrous physics experiment, or unleashing hostile artificial intelligence on us, as Shawn Domagal-Goldman of NASA’s Planetary Science Division and his colleagues suggested they might in a 2011 report.
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