The Breakthrough Listen project, aimed at finding extraterrestrial life, is expanding its capabilities with the announcement of the inclusion in the program of using the MeerKAT radio telescope network located in the North Cape province of South Africa. With the help of this installation and other telescopes around the world, scientists from the Breakthrough Listen project are going to study 1 million stars for signs of signals from alien civilizations.
Recall that Breakthrough Listen was initiated by billionaire Yuri Milner and the late Stephen Hawking, who allocated $ 100 million for the program for the search for extraterrestrial life, as well as other projects.
Connecting the MeerKAT network of radio telescopes to the Green Bank radio telescopes already working in conjunction (owned by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and located in West Virginia) and the Australian Parks Observatory radio telescopes significantly expand the search capabilities, the organizers of the project note.
The official opening of the MeerKAT radio telescope network took place this July. The network consists of 64 radio dishes, each with a diameter of 13.5 meters. The signals received by each cymbal are combined into a single source to dramatically increase sensitivity, resolution, and angle of view, Breakthrough Listen members say.
The MeerKAT radio telescope network was created with the aim of conducting astrophysical research, as well as a harbinger of a more ambitious project - the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), which will be completed around 2024. Within the framework of this project, it is planned to combine several dozen radio telescopes into a single and largest radio interferometer in the world, whose collecting area should significantly exceed 1 square kilometer. More than 20 countries are participating in the project.
According to Space.com, MeerKAT radio telescopes will not have to postpone their basic scientific work in connection with new tasks to search for signs of extraterrestrial life. The Breakthrough Listen team installed a small supercomputer in the MeerKAT control center, which will allow the installation to search for extraterrestrial life in the background almost without stopping.
We are talking about a colossal volume of incoming data. The Listen system at the MeerKAT control center has an input transmission rate of 4 terabits per second, which is about 40,000 times the bandwidth of the average home Internet connection, members of the Breakthrough Listen team say.
According to the original plan, the MeerKAT network was to consist of 20 radio dishes. They wanted to call the project Karoo Array Telescope (KAT). However, later, the South African government increased funding for the project, which made it possible to build a total of 64 radio telescopes. The expansion of the project was followed by a name change. The radio telescope network was named MeerKAT. The word "meer" in Afrikaans means "more". In addition, MeerKAT is completely in tune with the English word "meerkat", which translates as meerkat. These mongoose animals are very common in South Africa and are distinguished by their keen observation.
Nikolay Khizhnyak