Did China's 'Sky Eye' Telescope Just Detect Alien Signals?

pcmag.com:

Did a Chinese telescope discover(Opens in a new window) signs of an extraterrestrial civilization? Or did its overly sensitive instruments set off premature alarm bells?

Signs point to the latter, but everyone loves a good alien story. So when China's state-backed Science and Technology Daily reported that the country's Sky Eye telescope may have picked up alien signals, it caused quite the commotion on Chinese social media, Bloomberg reports(Opens in a new window).

That online chatter may be why the report has since disappeared from Science and Technology Daily, though other state-backed sources are reporting(Opens in a new window) the news. As Global Times writes(Opens in a new window): "an international team led by Chinese scientists discovered and located the first persistently active repeating fast radio burst (FRB) with the help of the world's largest radio telescope."

As the Cornell Chronicle explains(Opens in a new window): "What excites astronomers about the repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) – since they only burst once, generally speaking – is that these quick-fire surges provide a pathway for scientists to comprehend the perplexing, mysterious and million-degree intergalactic medium."

The telescope in question—the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST)—went online in 2016. It's situated in southwest China's remote Guizhou Province and consists of 4,450 panels; it's 1,640 feet in diameter, or roughly twice as sensitive as the second-biggest telescope of its kind, the now-defunct(Opens in a new window) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which spans 1,000 feet across.

Science and Technology Daily cited Zhang Tonjie, chief scientist of an extraterrestrial civilization search group at Beijing Normal