For 60 years, scientists have been searching for so-called technical fingerprints that could indicate the presence of intelligent life outside Earth in our vast universe. These technical fingerprints were identified in extraterrestrial radio signals.
But those efforts relied on using single observatories to capture these signals, which limited the ability to capture them, firstly because of the interference that could be caused by radio signals active on the Earth’s surface, and secondly because previous efforts were working to capture signals with higher frequencies. About one gigahertz, because the single-dish telescopes used were operating in the range of those frequencies.
Overcome previous shortcomings
Recently, a new press release published on the “Phys.org” website announced a collaborative research project supervised by Trinity College Dublin, in which 3 telescopes participate, namely the Irish Lovar Telescope, the Breakthrough Liesen Telescope in Oxford, and the Swedish Onsala Space Observatory, and is working to surpass These are things that technically limit the search for intelligent life outside Earth.
The international team working at these institutions, led by Professor Ivan Kane, Associate Professor of Radio Astronomy at Trinity School of Physics and Head of the Irish Lovar Telescope, has developed a multi-site technique involving multiple telescopes, allowing them to search in a frequency range much lower than that of Previously researched, the new project is investigating the frequency range from 110 to 190 MHz.
The new project investigates the frequency range from 110 to 190 MHz (iLofar)
As the press release states, using multiple sites has a major benefit: a “false positive” radio signal is less likely to be received; Such signals arise due to interference between many human sources on Earth.
The team has just published details of its method and ongoing research in The Astronomical Journal on October 24. The team has already scanned 1.6 million star systems identified as targets of interest by the Gaia and TESS space missions, run by the European Space Agency and NASA, respectively. So far, these searches have yielded no results.
Further development
If the search efforts have not yet yielded a result, they will not stop. Researchers reported in the press release that Lofar will soon undergo a phased series of upgrades across all stations across Europe in the array.
The statement added that this will allow searches for intelligent life outside Earth to search in the frequency range of radio signals ranging from 15-240 MHz.
Will all these efforts, and this extent of examination of radio signal frequencies, lead to anything truly positive indicating the existence of intelligent life outside Earth? This is what the years and perhaps future research papers in this field will reveal.
