LONDON (Reuters) - An unexplained radio signal from deep space could --
just might be -- contact from an alien civilization, New Scientist
magazine reported on Thursday.
The signal, coming from a point between the Pisces and Aries constellations,
has been picked up three times by a telescope in Puerto Rico.
New Scientist said the signal could be generated by a previously
unknown astronomical phenomenon or even be a by-product from the telescope
itself.
But the mystery beam has excited astronomers across the world.
"If they can see it four, five or six times it really begins to get
exciting," Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath in western England
told the magazine.
It was broadcast on the main frequency at which the universe's most
common element, hydrogen, absorbs and emits energy, and which astronomers
say is the most likely means by which aliens would advertise their presence.
The potentially extraterrestrial signals were picked up through the
SETI@home project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions
of personal computers worldwide to sift through the huge amount of data
picked up by the telescope.
