[ad_1]
Breakthrough Listen – the astronomical program looking for signs of intelligent life in the universe – submitted two journals to journals specializing in astrophysics, describing the analysis of its first three years of radio and radio observations. the availability of a petabyte of radio and optical telescope data. This represents the largest dissemination of SETI data in the history of his domain.
Listen performs detailed observations of a sample of 1,702 nearby stars (about 160 light-years away from Earth) using Green Bank radio telescope (GBT) in West Virginia and CSIRO's Parkes telescope in Australia. In addition, the exploration of a broad band of the disk of our galaxy is underway at Parkes, the observation of a sample of a million stars is going to be coming soon. start at the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa, the Lick Observatory automatic planet detector being used for optical signal research and collaborations continue to grow with a number of partner facilities around the world.
The Breakthrough Listen team at the University of California, Berkeley's SETI Research Center (BSRC), has developed a number of techniques to search data for "technosignatures" – evidence of technologies (such as transmitters or propulsion devices) built by extraterrestrial civilizations.
These techniques include searching for strong signals occupying a narrow range of radio frequencies, searching for bright lasers used for communication or propulsion, as well as new algorithms based on machine learning techniques used to study unexplained astrophysical phenomena, in addition to technosignature. search.
Based on the results presented by the team in 2017 that reported the analysis of 692 stars observed with GBT, Breakthrough Listen submitted a more extensive and detailed analysis of 1,327 nearby stars (near 80% of the sample of stars near Listen), observed over the past three years as part of a joint program between GBT and Parkes.
With these new results, Breakthrough Listen has completed the most comprehensive and sensitive radio search for alien intelligence (SETI) in history. In addition, experience gained in the first three years of the program means that Listen should extend its results to higher frequencies, to more types of signals and (with the MeerKAT program) to thousands of times more. # 39; stars.
Looking for a needle in a haystack
The research "pipeline" travels through billions of radio channels, seeking signals that are too narrow and well defined to result from natural processes. The vast majority of detected radio signals come from our own human technology, but the team applies two techniques to filter out these interfering signals for potential signatures of "needles in a haystack" of extraterrestrial intelligence.
The first filter selects only the narrowband signals whose frequency drifts, rejecting many jammers occurring in the vicinity of the telescopes, while preserving the signals with Doppler drift (frequency variation as a function of time due to their movement relative to the telescope ). The second filter removes signals that do not appear to come from a fixed point of the sky. By performing comparative analyzes of the regions of the sky near the targeted star, signals not coming from the direction of the target star can be deleted.
Both of these techniques reduce the size of the "haystack" from tens of millions of signals to a handful. The few remaining candidates for technosignature have been carefully examined and have been identified as isolated examples of man-made radio frequency interference that survived both cuts. Despite the lack of true technosignature detections, however, the scientific paper describing the analysis places the strictest limits to date on the prevalence of extraterrestrial radio-transmitting civilizations in our galactic neighborhood.
The results of this analysis are presented in an article submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, led by Parkes Breakthrough Listen project scientist Dr. Danny Price. A pre-print, as well as associated general information and links to an analysis software, are also available.
"This data release is an important step for the Breakthrough Listen team," said Dr. Price. "We have traveled thousands of hours of observation of nearby stars, over billions of frequency channels.We have found no evidence of artificial signals coming from outside from the Earth, but that does not mean that there is no intelligent life out there: we may not have examined it yet in the right place, or have looked deeply enough to detect weak signals. "
Public data
Breakthrough Listen strives to make as much data available to the public as possible, so that the astronomer community, deep learning experts and all other interested parties can download and review the results of their observations. The team hopes that the data will be used for other types of astronomical surveys in addition to technosignature research, and that those with relevant expertise can help the program develop more efficient and faster algorithms to detect and filter. potential candidate signals.
The datasets reviewed in the analysis paper led by Dr. Price are now publicly available through the Breakthrough Listen open data architecture and also via a BSRC-hosted beta interface, which provides access to the same sets of data. data, but with additional search options. In addition to the GBT and Parkes data described above, the archive also contains data from our observations of FRB 121102 (the first repeated radio burst detected), interstellar asteroid sweeps, and a mine. optical data from the APF.
Together, they account for nearly 1 petabyte of publicly available data, equivalent to approximately 1,600 years of streaming audio from your favorite online music service. You will find a description of the data formats, analysis tools and archiving system in a second document that the Listen team was to publish, under the direction of Matt Lebofsky, Senior System Administrator of BSRC .
"While we had already made public smaller subsets of data in various forms and contexts," said Lebofsky, "we are excited and proud to offer this first consistent collection accompanied by a instruction manual so everyone can access and help us, and we're just starting – there's a lot more to come! "
Breakthrough Listen is a scientific program looking for evidence of technological life in the universe. It aims to study a million nearby stars, the entire galactic plane and 100 nearby galaxies on a wide range of radio and optical bands.
Related Links
BREAKING INITIATIVES
Lands Beyond Beyond – Additional Solar Planets – News & Science
Life beyond the earth
|
We need your help. The SpaceDaily information network continues to grow, but revenues have never been more difficult to maintain. With the rise of ad blockers and Facebook, our traditional revenue streams via quality advertising on the network continue to decline. And unlike many other news sites, we do not have a paywall – with these usernames and boring passwords. Our press coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you feel that our news sites are useful and useful, then consider becoming a regular supporter or contributing for the moment. |
||
|
SpaceDaily Contributor $ 5 billed once credit card or paypal |
 |
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $ 5 billed per month Paypal only |
SETI Institute: agreement with Unistellar to develop a network of scientific citizens
Mountain View CA (SPX) March 11, 2019
The SETI Institute, a non-profit scientific institution located in Mountain View, California, and the French company Unistellar, based in Marseille, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will establish and strengthen joint research, education and outreach activities. of education aiming to: develop the citizen science network on Unistellar telescopes. The project will be presented at the SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards this week in Austin, Texas.
Thanks to its unique technology of light accumulation, the … read more
[ad_2]
Source link
