Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist
Using a telescope in Western Australia, astronomers in the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program are expanding the hunt for aliens to exciting new frontiers.
SETI has teamed up with the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) to use the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in the Australian outback to look for clues of alien intelligence in other galaxies.
MWA data was used to search 2,880 galaxies for signs of alien life. The research is detailed in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal.
It is one of the most detailed searches for alien life ever conducted.
The scientists are hopeful they might find “technosignatures” – signs of alien technology which produces radio waves which can be detected on Earth.
“This study shows how important it is to keep exploring different radio frequencies and us0ing the unique capabilities of telescopes like the MWA,” says author Steven Tingay, a professor at Western Australia’s Curtin University.
“The MWA continues to open up new ways of exploring the universe for intelligent civilisations and technosignatures, while using the same data to study the astrophysics of stars and galaxies.”
SETI was established by NASA in 1984 and is based in California.
It has not found aliens… yet.
40 years on and SETI is looking at new ways to expand the search. The results at MWA show how the search can be expanded to look not only in our own backyard in the Milky Way, but to take the hunt out into our intergalactic neighbourhood.
“This work is novel and paves the way for future observations with even more powerful telescopes,” Tingay adds.
The SETI Institute’s Dr Chenoa Tremblay said the study was an exciting new approach to searching for civilizations more advanced than our own.
“To send a signal from another galaxy, a civilisation would need technology powerful enough to use the energy of their sun or several stars in their galaxy,” says author Dr Chenoa Tremblay, a SETI astronomer at the Institute’s research centre at the University of California, Berkeley.
“This work represents a significant step forward in our efforts to detect signals from advanced extraterrestrial civilisations,” Tremblay says.
“The large field of view and low-frequency range of the MWA makes it an ideal tool for this kind of research and will guide future searches for other forms of life.”
