First-ever search for alien ‘supercivilizations’ begins as scientists hunt the galaxy for signs of ‘advanced technology’
ALIEN civilizations far more advanced than ours may be lying in wait in distant galaxies.
A coalition of scientists has set out to find signs of extraterrestrial technology, called technosignatures, in the first study of its kind.
The SETI Institute, the Berkely SETI Research Center, and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research banded together to search for alien life.
In a paper submitted to arXiv on August 19, the team detailed their hunt for interstellar signals, particularly low radio frequencies around 100 MHz.
They employed the help of the Murchison Widefield Array, a radio telescope in Western Australia.
The telescope’s large field of view allowed them to cover roughly 2,800 galaxies in one observation. Of these, scientists know the distance to 1,300 of them.
The researchers honed in on a cluster of galaxies near the Vela supernova remnant, the remains of a millennia-old explosion in the southern constellation.
The hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence has largely centered around signals within the Milky Way, so the focus on distant galaxies makes this study one of the most comprehensive to date.
“When we consider the search for intelligent life beyond Earth, we often consider the age and advancement of technology that may produce a signal detectable by our telescopes,” the paper reads.
“In popular culture, advanced civilizations are portrayed as having interstellar spacecraft and communication.”
To send a signal from a distant galaxy, a civilization would have to garner the energy of their sun or stars to power advanced technology.
Scientists have long been charmed by the idea of our extraterrestrial neighbors beaming a signal into space.
Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev devised a scale in 1964 to classify a civilization’s level of advancement based on the amount of energy it can use.
Experts haven’t shied away from exploring every possibility, even those pulled straight from fiction.
The concept of a Dyson sphere was first proposed in the 1937 novel Star Maker. This super-advanced structure cages a star and captures enough energy to power a civilization.
While the latest study couldn’t detect any technosignatures, it brings us one step closer to locating our distant neighbors.
“This work represents a significant step forward in our efforts to detect signals from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations,” said co-author Chenoa Tremblay.
Other researchers are concurrently searching for different signs of alien technology.
A paper published in The Astrophysical Journal focused on evidence of solar panels on potential “Earth-like exoplanets.”
That study, too, was inconclusive. Scientists determined a civilization harnessing solar power would be nearly impossible to detect, as solar energy is too efficient.
But there is another possibility: advanced extraterrestrial civilizations may be so far ahead of us that they don’t rely on solar or stellar energy.
Despite the setbacks, scientists remain persistent.
“The MWA continues to open up new ways of exploring the Universe for intelligent civilizations and technosignatures, while using the same data to study the astrophysics of stars and galaxies,” co-author Steven Tingay said.
“This work is new and novel, but also paves the way for future observations with even more powerful telescopes.”