"Stellar activity such as solar storms and plasma turbulence from a star near a transmitting planet can broaden otherwise ultra-narrow signals. That spreads the power of any such transmission across more frequencies, the institute's scientists say, which makes it more difficult to detect using traditional narrowband searches."
"Even if an extraterrestrial transmitter produces a perfectly narrow signal, it may not remain narrow by the time it leaves its home system. Plasma density fluctuations in stellar winds, as well as occasional eruptive events such as coronal mass ejections, can distort radio waves near their point of origin, effectively smearing the signal's frequency."
"If a signal gets broadened by its own star's environment, it can slip below our detection thresholds, even if it's there, potentially helping explain some of the radio silence we've seen in technosignature searches, SETI astronomer Vishal Gajjar said."
The SETI Institute has published research suggesting that space weather conditions may explain why searches for extraterrestrial signals have detected little evidence of alien communication. Stellar activity near transmitting planets, including solar storms and plasma turbulence, can broaden narrow radio signals across multiple frequencies. This broadening reduces signal strength and spreads power across wider frequency ranges, causing transmissions to fall below detection thresholds of traditional narrowband search methods. Even perfectly narrow signals produced by extraterrestrial transmitters may become distorted by plasma density fluctuations and coronal mass ejections as they leave their home systems, effectively smearing the signal's frequency characteristics.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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