The search for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations has expanded to 20,000 star systems and will now include systems that were previously considered unsuitable targets for the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, American researchers said yesterday, Wednesday.
New scientific data made scientists at the SETI Institute for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence believe that planetary systems of red dwarfs - dim "long-livers" of the Universe - are quite promising objects for scientific research related to the search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.
This two-year project involves selecting candidate systems from a roster of 70,000 red dwarf planetary systems and scanning 20,000 nearby systems.
To implement this idea, scientists at the SETI Institute will use the organization's Allen radio telescope array, which is located in the north of California, USA, and is an array of 42 antennas, with which it is possible to observe three stars simultaneously.
“We will scan selected star systems in multiple frequency bands ranging between 1 and 10 GHz,” said SETI scientist Jerry Harp.
"About half of these bands will be at so-called 'magic frequencies' - frequencies that are directly related to basic mathematical constants," he added.
For a long time, scientists did not search for extraterrestrial intelligence in red dwarf systems, due to the fact that the habitable zones around these stars are too narrow. Any planets orbiting such stars will constantly face the parent star with the same side, with one side of the planet becoming very hot and the other too cold for life forms to exist. However, relatively recently, science has become aware that there are effective mechanisms for transferring heat from the hot side of the planet to the cold side, and this makes most of the surface of such planets potentially habitable.
Compiled from materials provided by SETI.
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