A Russian radio telescope scanning the skies has observed a strong signal" from a nearby star, HD164595, in the constellation Hercules. The star is a scant 95 light years away and 99% of the size of Earth's own sun. It has at least one planet, HD164595b, which is about the size of Neptune and has a 40-day year. Seth Shostak of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (Seti) ... was shocked to have learned of the discovery only now - the readings from Russian radio telescope Ratan-600, Shostak said, were taken a year ago. The news came to international attention on Saturday through Claudio Maccone of the University of Turin in Italy, who attended a talk by the scientists who recorded the signal on 15 May 2015. Maccone sent the Guardian his proposed presentation for the International Academy of Astronautics 2016 meeting on the subject of the search for alien life, set for 27 September. He will call for the permanent monitoring of HD164595. "Could it be an ET?" asked Shostak rhetorically. "Of course, but ... it is hard to tell if the signal comes from intelligent life. If it is being broadcast across a large chunk of the radio spectrum, the noise is probably coming from a quasar or another source of stellar "noise"; if it is over a narrower band but very strong, it is likelier to be the product of intelligence.