SETI Released The Most Comprehensive Dataset On Alien Life Search

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Breakthrough Listen is an astronomical program which surveys the universe in an attempt to track down alien life. Two publications created by the program were offered to prestigious astrophysics journals, and the amount of information is quite impressive. The papers describe the first three years of radio observation recorded by researchers, and it is accompanied by a petabyte of radio and optical data.

The move marks the most significant release of SETI data since the field was established. Listen observes a selection of 1702 nearby stars with the help of the Green Bank Radio Telescope which is located in West Virginia and the Australian Parkes Radio Telescope owned by CSIRO.

Researchers from Parkes are also hard at work on a project which aims to explore a large part of the Milky Way’s galactic disk. This project receives support from the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa the Lick Observatory’s Automated Planet Founder. The latter is used to search for optical signals, and several partners may join the initiative in the future.

SETI Released The Most Comprehensive Dataset On Alien Life Search

The Breakthrough Listen team has created a large number of techniques which allow researchers to track down traces of technosignatures, data which may infer the presence of advanced technology (for example radio signals or propulsion devices) built by alien civilizations.

Among the techniques we may count the search for high-intensity radio signals found within a narrow frequency selection, attempts to find lasers which are used for communication and advanced algorithms which can be used to learn more about strange astrophysical phenomena.

By using the experience gained in the last three years, the researchers plan to expand the survey to higher frequencies, a more significant number of signal types and a considerably larger amount of stars. While the project didn’t find consistent technosignatures at this point, better results could likely be obtained in the future.

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