Overview
- Researchers report that turbulent stellar plasma can smear narrow radio transmissions across frequencies, pushing potential technosignatures below current detection thresholds.
- Using broadcasts from Mariner, Pioneer, Helios, Viking and other probes, the team quantified how our Sun’s plasma broadens signals and built a framework to estimate similar effects around other stars.
- The analysis shows spectral broadening intensifies closer to a star and during stronger space‑weather events such as coronal mass ejections.
- The effect is expected to be pronounced around active M‑dwarf stars, which are common exoplanet hosts and comprise roughly three‑quarters of Milky Way stars.
- The Astrophysical Journal paper urges SETI programs to revise pipelines and templates to search for wider, fuzzier signals, while noting it does not report any extraterrestrial detection.