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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Science
Richard Luscombe

Stormy space weather may be garbling messages from aliens, new research suggests

a starry night sky
The Milky Way galaxy. Photograph: Ercin Erturk/Anadolu via Getty Images

Earth’s leading alien hunters believe extraterrestrials could be out there – they’re just having a hard time getting through to us because it’s stormy in space.

Reminiscent of ET’s struggles to “phone home” in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 blockbuster movie, new research by the Silicon Valley-based Seti Institute (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) suggests tempestuous space weather makes radio signals from the distant cosmos harder to detect.

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