Radar systems used by civilian airports and military operations are inadvertently revealing our existence to potential advanced alien civilizations, new research shows.
The study explored how hidden electromagnetic leakage might look to extraterrestrials up to 200 light-years from Earth, if they had state-of-the-art radio telescopes like our own. Theoretically, it also suggests this is how far we would be able to look to spot aliens who have evolved to use a similar level of technology.
Preliminary results revealed at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2025) in Durham show how worldwide aviation hubs such as Heathrow, Gatwick and New York's JFK International Airport give off clues to our existence.
By carefully simulating how these radar signals spread out from Earth over time and space, the researchers looked at how visible they would be from nearby stars such as Barnard's Star and AU Microscopii.
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