A privately funded project looking for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence has begun operations on a radio telescope.
The team will expand the number of targets observed by a factor of 1000 over the next two years.
One of the most sensitive telescopes in the world will be used to find technosignatures.
MeerKAT will allow us to detect a radio beacon similar to Earth's bright radio beacon out to a distance of 250 light years.
There are over two hundred thousand stars within that range. There is still a chance of finding signals from distant sources for stars further away.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence has a hard time getting funding. Since the cancellation of the High Resolution Microwave Survey, NASA has avoided SETI research.
One of the biggest questions humanity can ask is if we are alone in the Universe.
SETI has received a boost from private funding.
The Parkes Telescope in Australia is one of the places where Breakthrough Listen operates. The newest addition is called Meerkat.
The Green Bank telescope can see a small area of sky, but the array of 64 dishes at MeerKAT can see a larger area.
They can piggyback onto the telescope and use their search for technosignatures without interfering with other astronomer's observing time.
Many stars that are interesting technosignature targets can be found in a large field of view.
We can combine signals from the 64 dishes to get high resolution scans of the targets without impacting the research of other astronomer who are using the array.
One of the first targets that will be observed is Proxima Centauri, a star with two rocky planets.
There are differing opinions about whether there are technological civilizations out there.
If they were out there, we would have seen them, according to one camp. It's odd that we haven't seen any yet, because the idea of life being common elsewhere in the universe is part of the Fermi Paradox.
The Drake equation was formulated in the 1960's to try and find life elsewhere.
There are no clues as to what is going on. The 'WOW! signal' in 1977 did not repeat in follow-up studies. It's not clear what else is out there. They often prove to be signals from other planets.
We will not get an answer if we don't look. The search will be more thorough because of the power of MeerKAT. Time will tell whether or not they find something.
This article was published in the past. The original article is worth a read.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
