A team of scientists from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program did not find any artificial radio signals emanating from the famous exoplanet K2-18b, despite carrying out one of the most comprehensive radio observations of this distant world, which has aroused widespread interest in recent years, according to a report published by SciTechDaily.

The planet is located about 124 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo, and orbits within the habitable zone around a red dwarf star. It gained great fame after observations from the James Webb Space Telescope revealed the presence of noticeable amounts of carbon dioxide and methane in its atmosphere.


Scientists believe that these characteristics may make K2-18b a class of planets known as “Hessian,” which are worlds that are believed to have a dense, hydrogen-rich atmosphere above vast oceans of liquid water, which raises the possibility of their suitability for life.

To search for any signs of the existence of an advanced civilization, scientists used two of the most powerful radio observatories in the world: the giant “Karl G. Jansky” array in the US state of New Mexico, and the “Meerkat” radio telescope in South Africa.

The study, whose preliminary results were published on the arXiv platform, relied on the technique of searching for narrow-band radio signals, the type that is believed to indicate the presence of industrial technologies or intelligent communications.

Although millions of potential signals were recorded during the monitoring process, the researchers were unable to find any signal that could be classified as coming from advanced technology similar to current human technology.

Radio astronomers face a major challenge, which is distinguishing between signals coming from space and interference resulting from human activity on Earth. To overcome this problem, the team used advanced software systems capable of excluding terrestrial signals and classifying incoming data with high accuracy.

The researchers also resorted to a technique known as “multi-beam analysis,” where one radio beam was directed toward the target planet, while other beams were directed toward different regions of the sky. This method helps distinguish between real satellite signals and interference coming from the Earth.

Although no evidence has been found indicating the presence of an intelligent civilization on K2-18b, scientists confirm that the study represents an important step in developing tools for searching for life outside Earth. (Arabic)