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Are aliens using tops herculean flashlights to get our tending ? uranologist think there ’s a prospect they are .
Since the invention of the wireless , humans have been wordlessly listen to the stars , marvel if we are alone in the creation . Butif intelligent exotic life history does exist , the extraterrestrials could be using other forms of technology to transmit . astronomer are start out to not only heed to the cosmos but also gaze toward it for other sign of alien technical school : laser beam of light .
The array of four optical 12-meter telescopes of the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Amado, Arizona.
Breakthrough Listen , the most panoptic Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( SETI ) program in history , announced that its team will begin looking for newfangled signs of alien engineering using the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System ( VERITAS ) at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Amado , Arizona . [ 9 unknown , Scientific Excuses for Why humankind Have n’t find Aliens Yet ]
" When it come to intelligent life beyond Earth , we do n’t know where it survive or how it commune , " Yuri Milner , billionaire particle physicist and founding father of Breakthrough Listen , said in astatement . " So our philosophy is to look in as many spot , and in as many ways , as we can . VERITAS exposit our kitchen range of observance even further . "
Using VERITAS , uranologist will begin scanning the Nox sky for nanosecond flashes of light from nearby stars . Like a lighthouse beacon for the macrocosm , these brief heartbeat of optic light would outshine any nearby stars and could indicate a method acting of foreign communication .
The array of four optical 12-meter telescopes of the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Amado, Arizona.
" With the add-on of VERITAS , we ’re raw to an important new stratum of signal : fast optical pulse , " Andrew Siemion , the director of Berkeley ’s SETI Research Center , said in the statement . " Optical communication has already beenused by NASAto channel high - definition simulacrum to Earth from the moon , so there ’s a intellect to trust that an advanced civilization might use a scaled - up variation of this technology for interstellar communication . "
VERITAS has looked for such laser pulses from the mysteriously dimmingTabby ’s Starafter some had speculate there could bean alien megastructuresurrounding it that caused the odd dimming . If themost brawny laserson Earth were used at Tabby ’s Star and pointed in our direction , VERITAS could detect them . Of the 1 million stars on the Breakthrough Listen target tilt , most of them are 10 to 100 times closer to Earth than Tabby ’s Star , imply even weaker laser flashes from healthy aliens could be detected .
The array of four 12 - meter optical telescope is traditionally used to find Vasco da Gamma rays — in high spirits - energy radiation syndrome emitted by extreme cosmic objective like set off stars and even contraband jam — in the nighttime sky . When da Gamma rays hit Earth ’s ambience , they get very faint blue twinkling of light calledCherenkov irradiation , because the particles move faster than the speed of light through air . So the blue-blooded flashes are the unaccented eq of a sonic gold rush . The scope array ’s power to notice and nail the source of these curtly - lived blue flashes made it the complete candidate to search for optical maser beams from remote stars and galaxy .
" It is impressive how well - suited the VERITAS scope are for this labor , since they were built only with the purpose of studying very - gamy - vim gamma shaft in mind , " David Williams , a phallus of the VERITAS collaboration and professor of physics at the University of California , Santa Cruz , read in the statement .
The Breakthrough Listen opening move is a $ 100 million , 10 - yr project funded by Milner , a Russia - Israeli billionaire and science altruist . The project , which start in 2015 , hasalready survey more than 1,000 starswithin 160 lite - age away from Earth for signs of foreign radio signal , with no irrefutable results .
" We trust that life go up ad libitum on Earth , so in an unnumbered world , there must be other natural event of life , " famed physicist Stephen Hawking said during theinitiative ’s launch . " Somewhere in the cosmos , perhaps intelligent life might be watch these luminosity of ours , aware of what they intend . Or do our brightness level thread a lifeless cosmos , unseen lighthouse annunciate that , here on one stone , the universe discovered its existence ? Either way of life , there is no well interrogation . "
Originally publish onLive Science .
