Airport radar systems, similar to those tracking planes, might be accidentally signaling our presence to intelligent alien civilizations, iflscience.com reports. Instead of picking up TV broadcasts—like old episodes of The Simpsons—extraterrestrials could be detecting the powerful radio waves leaking from Earth’s radars, especially military ones. Researchers estimate these signals could be detected up to 200 light-years away. Every time an airport radar scans the sky for aircraft, it sends radio waves into space. With over 40,000 airports worldwide (many equipped with radar), the combined signal is enormous—about 2×10¹⁵ watts. An alien civilization with technology like the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia could potentially detect these emissions. Military radar systems are even more distinctive. They’re highly focused, sweeping the sky like a lighthouse beam. Though they make up only 5% of total emissions, their unique patterns would clearly stand out as artificial to any advanced observers. “Civilizations can actually transmit signals without wanting to do that, unintentionally,” said lead researcher Ramiro Caisse Saide from the University of Manchester. “We have technology here and produce radio emissions. We want to understand if a civilization with enough technology could detect our own radio emission.” Saide’s earlier work found that cell tower signals might be detectable within 10 light-years. Airport radar, however, reaches much farther. The team simulated how these signals would appear from different star systems. Since radar distribution isn’t uniform, the strength would vary depending on Earth’s orientation to an observer. Proxima Centauri, the closest star with a known exoplanet, is just 4.2 light-years away. While 200 light-years may seem small in a galaxy spanning 100,000 light-years, it still contains over 120,000 stars—plenty of potential listeners. “SETI is a field of study which uses scientific methodologies to assess the question whether we are alone or not in the universe; and we use technology as a proxy for intelligence,” Saide explained. “The idea of my research is to try to understand this: if we have a civilization out there with the same capabilities in the radio domain, could they detect our own radio footprint?” The post Earth’s Airport Radars Could Be Seen by Alien Civilizations appeared first on Anomalien.com.