SETI astronomers warn decades of alien signal searches may be fundamentally flawed

What was said

"SETI searches typically look for extremely narrow radio frequency spikes. And that is because natural astrophysical processes rarely produce these types of spikes. So the new research argues that these signals may become distorted before they ever even leave the alien star system. There's plasma turbulence near the star, stellar winds and coronal mass ejections. And all of these apparently can spread a narrowband signal across a wider frequency range, which will weaken the signal peak."

Researchers at the SETI Institute published findings in the Astrophysical Journal showing that alien radio transmissions could be distorted by stellar weather before leaving their home systems, making them undetectable by current search methods. M dwarf stars, which comprise three-quarters of Milky Way stars, are especially likely to distort signals. The implication is that SETI may have been searching with incorrect detection parameters for decades, potentially missing genuine extraterrestrial communications.