The State Alliance for Scientific and Applied Research (CSIRO) in Australia announced that their The Parkes Radio Telescope at Parks Observatory is now part of the Breakthrough Listen program, the world's largest research program to find extraterrestrial civilizations.
The observatory is now joining two US radio telescopes: Green Bank in West Virginia and Automated Planet Finder in California. She has previously worked in collaboration with China's FAST, the world's largest radio telescope. Parks will present something completely new: a very good "radio listening" in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Breakthrough Listen program will devote 25 percent of the scientists' time and energy to the Parkes telescope over the next five years. This project checks the stars for any unusual radio waves that might indicate the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence. There have been no results so far, but hunting aliens is only part of the mission.
"The observatory's detection system will look for natural phenomena such as pulsars, as well as fast radio pulses, which make up most of the observatory's work at the moment," commented Dr. Bayles, Science Coordinator for the Breakthrough Listen program. He also added: "The Australian scientific community is committed to sharing Breakthrough Listen data with other research projects."
The official first "working day" of the radio telescope was November 8, after 14 days of commissioning and lengthy tests. To mark the start of the telescope, the first target was Proxima Centauri b, a recently discovered exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.
This planet is slightly larger than Earth. It is the closest exoplanet in the habitable zone and is located at a distance of 4.22 light years from us, which is very close on a cosmic scale. Researchers are not counting on much, as the chances of finding life on one planet are extremely small.
“As soon as we found out that all this time we had a planet right at our side, questions immediately arose. This study proved to be ideal for Parks,”said Dr. Andrew Simion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and leader of the Breakthrough Listen Science Program. He added: "If we find a civilization only 4.22 light years away, it will change everything."
The project is part of Breakthrough Initiatives, a series of projects that aim to help humanity “touch the stars”. It is sponsored by Russian internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner. He is thrilled to have the Parks Radio Telescope now part of the Breakthrough Listen project.
Promotional video:
“These important instruments are the 'ears' of planet Earth. And now they are listening to the sounds of other civilizations,”Milner comments.
IVAN MATYUKHIN