Trevor Collins

We have barely begun to scratch the surface that is space because you could look in an infinite number of locations.

You have to listen long enough because what if the signal is just passive and you missed it?

But that's why it truly is a needle in a haystack.

It's not like you can aim at this point in the sky and then constantly get this signal.

It could be a burst.

It could be lasting.

But how long does it last?

And so to give you an idea, I'll kind of give a metaphor here.

This is like looking out your people into the hallway.

And if somebody walks by, you're going to see them for maybe like two seconds.

And so you're going to get a few pieces of detail of them.

This is looking through a people up at space.

And again, it's scanning sideways across the sky based on the rotation of Earth.

And so the 72 seconds is important because the way the satellite operates, it can only measure and listen to any one point in the sky for a maximum of 72 seconds.

That point will go through that people in about 72 seconds.

So that's important because if the signal was longer than 72 seconds, it would mean that the signal was tracking the satellite moving with the Earth.

if the signal was shorter than 72 seconds, it would mean that it was a random burst of energy, which happens all the time, and it might not be important.

But the fact that it lasted consistently, very strongly, the full duration that we were aimed at it, it means that that signal might have been continuous and coming at us for days, months, we don't know, but certainly an intentional set of time.

Or feels intentional, I should say.

We just happened to basically sail right through whatever this was, right?