A team of astronomers has begun searching for signals from alien technology outside our galaxy using the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia. The SETI Institute, the SETI Research Center at Berkeley, and the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research joined the effort.
The array’s antennas, which resemble squads of metal spiders, are located in Western Australia, and although they are not as large-scale as some other observatories, they are effective at making radio observations of deep space. A recent study used the grid’s capabilities to scan 2,800 galaxies simultaneously. This is a new approach, as previous searches have mainly focused on the Milky Way. Stars within our Galaxy can be between 4 and 100,000 light-years away, while neighboring galaxies can be between 2 and 30 million light-years away, so the difference in scale is quite significant.
The team notes that one of the biggest challenges in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the speed at which the sky can be covered. Even with the wide field of view of the MWA grating, experiments with limited instrument access don’t allow full coverage of the entire sky.
According to SETI, in order to detect a signal from an alien civilization from another galaxy, its technology must be advanced enough to use a star or several luminaries as a power source. This is based on the Kardashev scale, which describes the levels of development of civilizations according to the energy they possess.
The Murchison Widefield Array has already been used to search for extraterrestrial intelligence in 2020, but there were no results then. The researchers found no technosignatures or signs of alien technology, just as today. However, as the researchers note, existing and future telescopes such as the Very Large Array and MeerKAT will greatly accelerate this search. Therefore, we might get an answer from outer space at some point.
Earlier we reported on how astronomers criticized the project to search for extraterrestrial civilizations.
According to gizmodo.com
