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Space

Alien messages responding to NASA signals could reach us by 2029

Radio signals sent to NASA spacecraft could have already reached four neighbouring star systems, and if any aliens tried to respond, we might hear from them within a few years from now

By Alex Wilkins

2 May 2023

A radio antenna at the Deep Space Network’s Canberra facility in Australia

NASA/Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex

If aliens are nearby and listening in on our spacecraft command signals, we could hear back from them as early as 2029.

Since 1972, NASA has used a system of radio antennae called the Deep Space Network (DSN) to track spacecraft and send powerful radio signals towards them.

Howard Isaacson at the University of California, Berkeley, and Reilly Derrick at the University of California, Los Angeles, worked out which stars these radio signals may have reached and when …

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