Photo credit: Mikhail Turnovskiy / Alamy Stock Photo
A mysterious signal, which appeared to come from the star HD 164595, a sun-like star located roughly 95 light-years from Earth, was detected on May 15, 2015 by a radio telescope operated by the Russian Academy of Science. The system has only one known planet: a warm gaseous Neptune-like planet that orbits its star in 40-days – the star could have other rocky planets as well. SETI researchers claim that such a bright signal might have been produced by a radio beacon built by an intelligent Type II civilization. Continue reading for another video and more information.
“If that beacon is transmitting radio waves in all directions, the energy it would need to produce is a whopping 1020 watts. That’s a big energy bill even if you’re getting a bulk discount from your local supplier. It’s hundreds of times more than all the energy falling on the Earth from sunlight,” said Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in California.