Australian telescope looks for aliens

Australia's Parkes Telescope will participate in the Breakthrough Listen project in search of extraterrestrial civilization and other natural phenomena.

The Parkes Telescope in Australia by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) started participating in the Breakthrough Listen project, the largest research plan to find alien civilization, IFL Science on November 8 reported.

The Breakthrough Listen, which studies stars to search for unusual radio waves, may be a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence. However, hunting for advanced civilization is only part of the mission.

Australia's Parkes telescope will participate in the search for extraterrestrial civilization.(Photo: Wayne Englund).

"The detection system on Parkes will simultaneously search for natural phenomena such as pulsar or rapid radio wave explosion. This is a great content in Parkes's current work. Australian scientists welcome the opportunity. to share data of Breakthrough Listen with other on-going projects, " said Dr. Bailes, Australia's Breakthrough science coordinator.

The Parkes Telescope started operating for the Breakthrough Listen project on November 8, after 14 days of testing and observation inspection. The first chosen target was Proxima b, an Earth-like extraterrestrial planet. It orbits the Proxima Centauri red dwarf, the closest star to the Sun and 4.2 light-years from Earth. Researchers do not expect to gain much information because the opportunity to find life on a planet is very small.

"But when we know there is a planet next to it, we need to understand it. Proxima-b is suitable to be the first observation object of Parkes. Finding civilization is just 4.2 Earth away. light years can change all, "said Dr. Andrew Siemion, Director of the Center for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), at the University of California, Berkeley, who is in charge of Breakthrough Listen science project. review

The Breakthrough Listen project is funded by Russian businessman Yuri Milner and is part of Breakthrough Initiatives, a series of projects that help humans create a breakthrough in studying stars. Milner was very happy when the Parkes telescope joined the project along with two Chinese radio telescopes and China's largest radio telescope in the world.

"These devices are Earth's" ears. "They are listening to the signs of other civilizations," Milner said.