From a planet orbiting beyond our sun:
Scientists may have detected radio emissions from a planet orbiting a star beyond our sun for the first time.
The astronomers behind the new research used a radio telescope in the Netherlands to study three different stars known to host exoplanets. The researchers compared what they saw to observations of Jupiter, diluted as if being seen from a star system dozens of light-years away. And one star system stood out: Tau Boötes, which contains at least one exoplanet. If the detection holds up, it could open the door to better understanding the magnetic fields of exoplanets and therefore the exoplanets themselves, the researchers hope…
However, Turner and his colleagues aren’t yet positive that the signal they detected really is coming from the planet, dubbed Tau Boötes b; the researchers called for additional observations of the system, which is about 51 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Boötes.
Meghan Bartels, “Scientists May Have Detected Radio Emissions From an Alien World” at RealClearScience (December 8, 2020)
Like space junk Oumuamua, it’ll almost certainly turn out to be nothing. So why … ?
It’s a legitimate question, at this point, whether “science” is just cultural territory now—a way of saying that one is Woke, Cool, and progressive. Depending on where you work, no actual results may be required.
See, for example:
A friend has asked, who subscribes to Scientific American any more? “Science” is heading downhill pretty fast in one really important sense: It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between “science” and “sciencey.”
and
It turns out! Not only was space junk Oumuamua an “extraterrestrial lightsail” but our whole universe might be an alien’s experiment. The stuff that comes out of Harvard these days and get published in Scientific American used to be tabloid news. What has changed?