Astronomers utilizing the Murchison Widefield Array in Western Australia have actually looked for alien signals at a 10 kHz spectral resolution stemming from a population of about 2,800 galaxies towards the Vela supernova residue.
This illustration reveals what the activities of a Kardashev Type III civilisation may appear like– encapsulating the energy of stars by so-called Dyson spheres is one method to harness huge energies on stellar scales; the resulting waste heat items must be noticeable by telescopes. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar/ ASTRON.
“When we think about the look for smart life beyond Earth, we frequently think about the age and development of innovation that might produce a signal noticeable by our telescopes,” stated Dr. Chenoa Tremblay from the SETI Institute and Professor Steven Tingay from Curtin University.
“In pop culture, advanced civilizations are represented as having interstellar spacecraft and interactions.”
“In the 1960s, the astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev proposed the scale to measure the degree of technological development of smart life beyond Earth.”
“The Kardashev scale has 3 levels: Type I civilizations can accessing all the energy offered on their world (up of 1016 W); Type II civilizations can straight take in a star’s energy (upwards of 1026 W); and Type III civilizations can catch all the energy given off by their galaxy (up of 1036 W).”
“Civilizations on the upper end of the Kardashev scale might produce big amounts of electro-magnetic radiation noticeable at stellar ranges.”
“Some of the concepts checked out in the previous include utilizing their galaxies’ starlight, colonizing their planetary system, or utilizing pulsars as interaction networks.”
“The capability for radio waves to penetrate area over fars away and through planetary environments made them a useful approach for looking for interstellar interaction.”
The authors utilized the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) to look for indications of alien innovation in galaxies beyond the Milky Way concentrating on low radio frequencies (100 MHz).
They covered about 2,800 galaxies in one observation, of which 1,300 they understand the range to.
“This work represents a substantial advance in our efforts to spot signals from sophisticated extraterrestrial civilizations,” Dr. Tremblay stated.
“The big field of vision and low-frequency variety of the MWA makes it a perfect tool for this type of research study, and the limitations we set will direct future research studies.”
The work appears in the Astrophysical Journal
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C.D. Tremblay & & S.J. Tingay. 2024. An Extragalactic Widefield Search for Technosignatures with the Murchison Widefield Array. ApJ 972, 76; doi: 10.3847/ 1538-4357/ ad6b11