06-01-12 Keplers SETI Project detects first signals

In an effort to detect the radio emissions from a hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligence,it helps to know where to look.Space,after all,is a very big place and the chances of accidentally stumbling across an alien television signal is very low.So,using data from the Kepler space telescope,astronomers are becoming more focused on "listening" for radio signals coming from stars known (or at least thought) to have planets orbiting them.And it seems the first "candidate" signals have been detected! But before you start popping the "we've discovered ET!" champagne corks,this first signal is most likely terrestrial in origin."We have started searching our Kepler SETI observations and our analyses have generated some of our first candidate signals," scientists of the University of California,Berkeley announced on Friday.Sadly,the first candidate signals arent lucky detections of alien radio transmissions, they are "undoubtedly examples of terrestrial radio frequency interference (RFI)." Although its interference from a source here on Earth,the detection of any artificial signal provides the UC Berkeley team with a great opportunity to understand the kind of artificial (alien) signals they hope to eventually discover.