Earth could possibly be one step closer to making contact with alien life if the latest findings by the Search for Extra-terrestrial Life turn out to be significant.

SETI-affiliated astronomers in Russia say that they have detected a signal possibly that may possibly be an indication of alien life originating from deep space.

The 11GHz signal seems to be coming from somewhere in the region of the star HD 164595, which is located 95 light years from Earth. That is about 90 trillion kilometres away (give or take a few trillion).

Now this doesn’t mean alien life is present, but astronomy author Paul Gilster said that it is definitely worth investigating.

“Working out the strength of the signal, the researchers say that if it came from an isotropic beacon, it would be of a power possible only for a Kardashev Type II civilisation. If it were a narrow beam signal focused on our Solar System, it would be of a power available to a Kardashev Type I civilisation,” he said.

A Type II civilisation, according to the Kardashev scale, is one that can harness the energy of the entire star. Earthlings are a Type 1 civilisation, as we can use and store energy which reaches our planet from the neighbouring star.

But then there is also the possibility that it could also just be nothing.

“The possibility of noise of one form or another cannot be ruled out, and researchers in Paris led by Jean Schneider are considering the possible microlensing of a background source by HD164595. But the signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target,” Gilster said.

We know quite a bit about HD 164595 already: it has a solar mass of 0.99, an estimated age of 6.3 billion years, is known to have at least one planet (HD 164595 b), and that planet is similar in size to Neptune and orbits its star in 40 days.

[Image – CC by 2.0/Me2]