A group of Irish physicists, using Ireland’s advanced LOFAR telescope, have conducted an extensive survey of 1.6 million star systems previously identified as intriguing candidates for detecting signs of alien technology.
This initiative, an integral part of the Breakthrough Listen project and the latest Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) effort, marked a groundbreaking foray into scanning radio frequencies significantly lower than those targeted by previous efforts.
Although this extensive search did not provide conclusive evidence of alien technology, the 1.6 million galaxies analyzed represent only a fraction of the potential search field.
The researchers involved are already upgrading their equipment to extend their range over an even wider spectrum of radio frequencies.
The official announcement from the research team at Trinity College Dublin underlines that attempts to detect radio signals from other galaxies have a history of more than six decades.
Once considered a marginal scientific pursuit and, at worst, a lamentable misallocation of resources, these efforts have gradually gained momentum thanks to an increasing body of scientific evidence suggesting that conditions for life in the cosmos are widespread.
“Over the past fifty years, evidence has steadily increased that the constituents and conditions necessary for life are relatively common in the universe,” explains Professor Evan Keane, Associate Professor of Radio Astronomy at Trinity’s School of Physics, “which is one of the raises life’s biggest problems. unanswered questions: are we really alone?”
In their published findings, which appeared in the Astronomical Journal, the researchers highlight that previous SETI work has mainly focused on frequencies above 1 GHz due to the limitations of single-dish telescopes.
Instead, the team used an array of multiple telescopes, allowing them to examine frequencies as low as 110 – 190 MHz, a range well below the threshold of any previous SETI survey.
“What makes studies like this really compelling is the fact that we’re pushing these telescopes to their limits and pointing them at substantial parts of the sky,” said Owen Johnson, Ph.D. Candidate at Trinity’s School of Physics and first author of the study.
“As a result, we have the exciting opportunity to discover all kinds of wild and wonderful phenomena in the process and, if we’re very lucky, even encounter our cosmic neighbors.”
