Scientists from the Breakthrough Listen project conducted a targeted search for narrowband radio signals of artificial origin in the LHS 1140 star system, located about 49 light-years from Earth. The focus was on the exoplanet LHS 1140 b, which was recently found to have a tenuous helium atmosphere, making it one of the most promising «super-Earths» for astrobiology. Using archival data from the 100-meter Green Bank Telescope (GBT), researchers scanned frequencies from 1 to 12 GHz. After rigorous filtering, no technological signals were confirmed — all candidate signals turned out to be Earth-based radio frequency interference. However, the absence of a signal is itself a valuable result: the team calculated the minimum effective isotropically radiated power (EIRP) that their system could detect, establishing a sensitivity threshold of 300 gigawatts. This means that if a continuous narrowband radio transmitter existed in the system, its energy would not exceed this value (otherwise it would have been detected). The study sets a benchmark for future searches and confirms the astrobiological potential of LHS 1140 b.
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