Hunting aliens is only part of the mission.
State Association scientific and applied research (CSIRO) in Australia reported that their radio telescope Parkes (The Parkes Radio Telescope) Observatory, Parkes is now part of the program Breakthrough Listen, the largest research program on search of extraterrestrial civilizations.
The Observatory is now connected to the two U.S. radio telescopes: Green Bank in West Virginia and the Automated Planet Finder in California. Previously she had worked in cooperation with Chinese FAST-the world’s largest radio telescope. Parks will present something absolutely new: a very good “radioprogreso” in the southern hemisphere.
Program Breakthrough Listen will allocate 25 percent of the time and effort of scientists to work with the Parkes telescope over the next five years. This project checks the stars in the presence of any unusual radio waves that might indicate the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence. So far the results it was not, but the hunt for aliens is only part of the mission.
“Detection system of the Observatory will look for natural phenomena such as pulsars and fast radio pulses that make up a large part of the work of the Observatory at the moment,” commented Dr. Bailes, scientific program coordinator, Breakthrough Listen. He added: “the Australian scientific community is always ready to share Breakthrough Listen with other research projects.”
The first official “working day” radio telescope was November 8, after 14 days of commissioning and long-term tests. In honor of the beginning of work of a telescope the first objective for the study was selected Proxima Centauri b, the recently discovered exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf Proxima Centauri.
This planet is slightly larger than the Earth. It is the nearest exoplanet in the habitable zone, and located at a distance of 4.22 light years from us, which is very close in cosmic scale. The researchers do not expect much, as the chances of finding life on one planet is extremely small.
“As soon as we learned that all this time we had a planet right next door, immediately raised questions. This study has proved ideal for parks,” said Dr. Andrew Simion, Director of the research center of Berkeley SETI and the leader of the research program Breakthrough Listen. He added: “If we find a civilization on the removal of only 4.22 light years from us, it will change everything.”
The project is part of the Breakthrough Initiatives, the number of projects that aim to help humanity “to touch the stars.” It sponsors a Russian Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner. He is very excited about the fact that the Parkes radio telescope is now part of the project Breakthrough Listen.
“These important tools — the “ears” of the planet Earth. And now they listen to the sounds of other civilizations,” says Milner.
