Having examined about 100,000 galaxies for signs of "advanced" civilizations, a team of researchers using scientific data obtained with the help of NASA's WISE orbiting observatory in their work did not find clear traces of the presence of other civilizations in the galaxies covered by the study.
“Our research was based on the idea that any advanced civilization that populated an entire galaxy should“betray”its presence in the Universe with electromagnetic waves in the mid-IR range, in which many high-tech objects emit. And this is exactly the kind of radiation that WISE can detect,”said Jason T. Wright, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and author of the concept for the new study.
“If advanced civilizations capable of traveling in space use significant amounts of energy produced by stars to provide it to computers, spacecraft, maintain communications, and also for other purposes that we may even find it difficult to imagine, then the basic relations of thermodynamics tell us that this energy should be radiated in the form of heat in the mid-IR range of the electromagnetic spectrum,”Wright explained.
During the study, astronomers scanned more than 100 million objects previously observed by the WISE telescope for unusually high levels of mid-IR radiation. The researchers then manually selected and visually analyzed images of more than 100,000 of the most detailed images of galaxies.
Researchers found about 50 objects with slightly increased levels of radiation in the mid-IR range, but no galaxies with pronounced signs of the presence of a space civilization were identified.
The study will be published today in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.
