Astronomers have discovered an "intriguing signal" from the closest star system to the Sun

Researchers are still preparing a paper on the discovery, and the data has not been made public. But the signal is reportedly

is a narrow beam of 980 MHz radio waves,discovered in April and May 2019 by the Parkes Telescope in Australia. The Parkes telescope is part of the $100 million Breakthrough Listen project, which aims to search for radio signals from technological sources outside the solar system. The 980 MHz signal appeared once and was never detected again. This frequency is important because, as Scientific American points out, it is in this band of radio waves that signals from man-made ships and satellites are usually absent.

Breakthrough Listen constantly detectsunusual radio signals—between terrestrial sources, the sun's natural radio signal, and natural sources outside the solar system, there are many radio waves bouncing around. But this signal appears to have come directly from the Proxima Centauri system, just 4.2 light years from Earth. Even more tantalizingly, the signal reportedly moved slightly during the observation. This reminded astronomers of the shift caused by the planet's movement. Proxima Centauri has one known rocky planet that is similar to Earth and is 17% larger.

The Guardian quoted an unnamed source,who has access to data on this signal, who stated: “This is the first serious candidate for alien communication after the Wow signal - a famous radio signal discovered in 1977, which also resembled a signal from an extraterrestrial ship. But the Guardian warns that the signal "is probably also of terrestrial origin."

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