Earth cosmonautics are a source of powerful, directional radio signals capable of reaching other worlds and providing evidence of the existence of intelligent life on our planet, if anyone is interested. If you look for traces of alien space programs, you can also try to find signs of intelligent life on other worlds. The best candidate for the search was the nearby TRAPPIST-1 system, which was carefully listened to.

The TRAPPIST-1 system has revealed signatures of at least seven exoplanets, some of which are in the habitable zone of the local star. It is 40 light-years away from Earth and is easy to observe. If an advanced civilization exists in this system and is already mature for spaceflight, this should be accompanied by intense radio exchange between the home planet and stations for the study of other worlds in the system.

While 40 light-years is a reasonable distance for an artificial radio signal to fade out or get lost in the noise, a message directed into space and amplified could well reach Earth. What is important in this case is to be in a direct line between the parent planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system, the planet studied locally to this system, and Earth. Such events are frequent enough to be tracked. Scientists from the SETI project, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania, calculated these windows and conducted a 28-hour listening session of the object.

Scanning space in the direction of the TRAPPIST-1 system has revealed millions of radio signals. The filters left the most promising of these, which turned out to be 11,127. Of this number, 2,264 signals fell on the “conflict” of the Earth and two planets in an alien system. Detailed analysis of the remaining radio signals found no signs of artificial origin.

“The methods and algorithms we developed for this project could eventually be applied to other star systems and could increase our chances of finding regular communication between planets outside our solar system, if they exist.” – said Nick Tusay, the lead author of the study. A failure does not mean failure. After all, no one has promised that the TRAPPIST-1 system necessarily contains intelligent life at the level of a cosmic civilization.