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A new technique is a dramatic breakthrough in the search for alien life, astronomers say. Researchers at the Breakthrough Listen project based at the University of California, Berkeley say they have developed a new way to be sure that any potential signal is really coming from space – and not from something more boring. Astronomers spend vast amounts of time looking for radio signals that might have come from alien civilisations as part of work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. But they have in the past been fooled by very human technology, such as cellphones, microwaves and car engines, that can produce a blast of radio signals that look as if they have come from distant worlds. One way to check whether signals are really alien is to point the telescope elsewhere and then repeatedly return to the same spot, with the hope of seeing the signal again and ensuring that it is not a false alarm. But that is not foolproof – and only works if the signal sticks around. Some of the most promising radio signals might only be detectable once. The so-called “Wow!” signal, for instance – a radio signal detected in 1977 that was so shocking the astronomer who found it wrote the exclamation on a printout – has not been detected since, and astronomers still do not know whether it was an alien message or just a mistake. Now scientists have devised a new test that can be used to see whether a signal has really passed through interstellar space, which should help show that it is not from elsewhere on Earth. It works by looking for “scintillation” – the changes in amplitude of a signal as it is affected by the cold plasma of space. “The first ET detection may very well be a one-off, where we only see one signal. And if a signal doesn’t repeat, there’s not a lot that we can say about that. And obviously, the most likely explanation for it is radio frequency interference, as is the most likely explanation for the Wow! signal,” said Andrew Siemion, principal investigator for Breakthrough Listen and director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, which operates the world’s longest running SETI program. “Having this new technique and the instrumentation capable of recording data at sufficient fidelity such that you could see the effect of the interstellar medium, or ISM, is incredibly powerful.” Dr Siemion called the breakthrough “one of the biggest advances in radio SETI in a long time” and said that it would be the first time researchers would be able to differentiate a real signal from a false alarm, even if it was only detected once. The technique can only be used for signals that have travelled 10,000 light years or more to Earth, researchers note. If it was closer to us, the scintillation effect cannot be seen because they are not travelling through enough of the interstellar medium, or ISM. The research is described in a new paper, ‘On Detecting Interstellar Scintillation in Narrowband Radio SETI’, published in The Astrophysical Journal. Read More Battery breakthroughs are about to trigger a transport revolution Huge asteroid nearly crashes into Earth – and is only spotted days later ChatGPT rival with ‘no ethical boundaries’ sold on dark web

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As the new Indiana Jones film approaches, Harrison Ford has given a teary eyed interview in which he explained the importance of emotion in the film series. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny comes out on 28 June, and it will be the 80-year-old actor’s last in the franchise. Speaking to the BBC, Ford said: “The thing that I most admire about [the films] is the depth and the subtlety of the emotion.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “As this last one concerns age and frailty and the changing nature of life it was especially compelling to me because I am of that age and I wanted it to feel real for the audience. “I wanted them to see the complexity of that experience with someone they spent 40 years with. As the camera cut back to the interviewer, Ali Plumb, he said to Ford: “On behalf of the fans, thank you. It’s been such an adventure, we love you so much.” “I don’t want to make you blush or anything but you mean the world to us.” The actor, visibly growing emotional, replied: “And I must say to you, thank you, sincerely. It means the world to me.” The interviewer later tweeted out a clip of the tweet, saying: “So I think I made Harrison Ford cry (a bit). He certainly made me cry, I'll be honest with you.” The exchange prompted a further outpouring of love on social media from fans. One person tweeted: “He plays up the curmudgeon role so often, it’s rare to see him like this.” Another said: “This man and the very heart and soul he brought to Indiana is something I have cherished my entire life. And I do not say that lightly… Indiana Jones is my favourite character of all time, and I only hope Mr. Ford knows, truly knows, what a gift he is to so, so many.” One commenter added: “As though he couldn't make us love him even more.” It wasn’t all tears, however, as co-star Phoebe Waller-Bridge recalled a time on set where she tried to prank Ford and it didn’t quite go to plan. The Fleabag star said she and another person on set dressed as Ford “like the ghosts of Christmas past and present”, snuck up on him and tried to surprise him. Ford had “absolutely no reaction,” she added. “I’m always just a poor victim,” he quipped after. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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