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Credit: NASA
"Are we alone in the universe?" The question has fascinated humans, even fascinated and even bewildered, as long as we remember.
Until now, it would seem that intelligent extraterrestrial life – at least as far as our narrow definition – can not be found. Theories and hypotheses abound as to why we have neither encountered nor seen evidence of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations despite decades-long efforts to make our presence known and communicate with them.
Meanwhile, a continuous stream of discoveries demonstrates the presence of Earth analogues – planets that, like ours, are at a distance from their respective "gold stars", in which conditions are life. ) to exist. Perhaps even more mind-blowing is the idea that there are, on average, as many planets as there are stars.
"That's, I think, one of the amazing discoveries of the last century – the planets are common," said Philip Lubin, an experimental cosmologist and professor of physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. . Given this and the hypothesis that the planets provide the conditions of life, the question for Lubin's group became: are we looking enough for these aliens?
It is the engine of the Trillion Planet Survey, a student research project of Lubin. The ambitious experiment, conducted almost entirely by students, uses a suite of telescopes near and far from the neighboring galaxy of Andromeda as well as other galaxies, including ours, a software "pipeline" to process the pictures and a small part of the game theory. .
"Above all, we assume that there is a class civilization similar or superior to ours that tries to diffuse its presence using an optical beam, perhaps of the type" directed energy "currently developed on Earth" said Andrew Stewart, senior researcher, Emory University student and member of the Lubin group. "Secondly, we assume that the transmission wavelength of this beam is the one we can detect, and finally, we assume that this beacon stayed on long enough for us to detect the light, if these conditions are met. The power and the diameter of the beam correspond to a class of civilization of type Earth, our system will detect this signal. "
Radio waves to light waves
For half a century, the Earth's dominant broadcast has taken the form of radio, television and radar signals, and extraterrestrial life researchers, such as SETI researchers, are using a powerful radio. telescopes to search for these signals from other civilizations. Recently, however, and thanks to the exponential progression of photonic technology, optical and infrared wavelengths provide search capabilities via optical signals for longer range detection for comparable systems.
In an article published in 2016 entitled "The Search for Directed Intelligence" or SDI, Lubin described the fundamental detection and game theory of a "blind" system where neither we nor the extraterrestrial civilization are aware but wish to find One and the other. This article was based on the application of photonics developed at UC Santa Barbara in the Lubin group for the propulsion of small spacecraft through space at relativistic velocities (ie a significant fraction of the speed of light) to allow the first interstellar missions. This ongoing project is funded by starter Billionaire's Breakthrough Starshot programs and billionaire Yuri Milner, both using the technology developed by UCSB. The 2016 article shows that the technology we are developing today would be the brightest light in the universe and would therefore be able to be seen throughout the universe.
Of course, not everyone is comfortable with advertising our presence to other potentially advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.
"Spreading our presence in the universe, believe it or not, turns out to be a very controversial subject," said Stewart, citing bureaucratic problems that arise each time we talk about markup, as well as the difficulty of obtaining the necessary technology. As a result, only a few tentative signals were sent in a directed manner, including the famous Voyager 1 probe with its gold disc resembling a message in a bottle.
In reversing the concept, the researchers asked, "What if other civilizations were less shy about spreading their presence?
"For the moment, we assume that they do not use gravity waves or neutrinos or anything that is very hard to detect," Lubin said. But the optical signals could be detected by small telescopes of diameter (class meter), such as those of the global network controlled by the observatory of Las Cumbres.
"Under no circumstances do we suggest that SETI radio should be abandoned in favor of optical SETI," Stewart added. "We believe that optical tapes should also be explored."
Search the stars
"We are currently studying (Andromeda) and getting what we call the" pipeline, "said researcher Alex Polanski, an undergraduate student at Santa Barbara University in the group of Lubin. A set of photos taken by the telescopes, each taking a slice of 1 / 30th of Andromeda, will be assembled to create a single image, he explained. This photograph will then be compared to a greener image in which there is no known transient signal – spurious signals from, for example, satellites or spacecraft – in addition to the optical signals emanating from the star systems themselves. The photo of the survey should have the same signal values as the blank "blank" photo, leading to a zero difference. But a difference greater than zero could indicate a transient signal source, Polanski explained. These transient signals would then be processed in Stewart's software pipeline to eliminate false positives. In the future, the team plans to simultaneously use multi-color imaging to eliminate false positives.
"One of the things the software is looking for is, for example, a satellite that has gone through our picture," said Kyle Friedman, a former graduate of Granada Hills High School in Los Angeles, who is conducting research in the group of Lubin. "It would not be small, it would be big enough and if that happened, the software would recognize it immediately and reject this image before even treating it."
According to the researchers, other hazards include sky conditions. This is why it is important to have several telescopes monitoring Andromeda during their execution.
Thanks to the efforts of Santa Barbara's computer engineer, Kelley Winters, and the advice of Jatila van der Veen, Lubin's project scientist, the data is in good hands. Winters' cloud-based Linux server provides a flexible and highly connected platform for data pipeline software to perform image analysis, while van der Veen will bring its expertise in digital image processing available to future experimental cosmologists.
For Caitlin Gainey, a former physicist and future physicist at Laguna Blanca School, who joins the first year class of UCSB physics, the project is a unique opportunity.
"In particular, in the Trillion Planet Survey, we are experiencing something very inspiring: we have the opportunity to look outside of our global bubble of galaxies, which could potentially lead to other beings coming back to us" she said. "The mere possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence is something very new and incredibly intriguing, so I'm thrilled to get into the research this year."
Research, for any SETI observer, is an exercise in patience and optimism. Andromeda is 2.5 million light-years away, van der Veen pointed out, so any signal detected now would have been sent at least 2.5 million years ago, which would be more that enough for the civilization having disappeared reaches us
"That does not mean we should not watch," van der Veen said. "After all, we are looking for archaeological remains and fossils, which tell us about the history of the Earth." Finding ancient signals will certainly give us information about the history of the evolution of life in the cosmos, and that would be incredible. "
Although the execution of the data and the processing time of this particular project may occur within a few weeks, according to the researchers, this sequence could be repeated indefinitely. Theoretically, like all sunrise and sunset observers, and star observers before us, we could look at the sky forever.
"I think if you had to take someone outside and you had to show a random star in the night sky and see where life is, I think you'd have a hard time finding someone who would not look at this star and just feel something very deep in themselves, "Polanski said," a very deep connection to everything up there or some kind of comfort, I think, knowing that we do not we are not alone. "
The latest UCSB theory on data and games of the "blind" detection strategy used is presented at the NASA Technosignatures Workshop in Houston on September 28th.
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