One of the world’s largest telescopes has just joined the hunt for signs of alien life elsewhere in the cosmos.
Since 2016, the Breakthrough Listen project has been quietly using radio telescopes to listen for unusual radio signals, or technosignatures, from potential advanced extraterrestrial civilizations within the Milky Way. The project, launched in part by the late Stephen Hawking and funded by Israeli entrepreneur Yuri Milner, already uses the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia in the United States and the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, as well as other radio telescopes from across the globe, to scan nearby stars. But now, the MeerKAT Telescope — an array of 64 individual dishes in South Africa, and currently the largest radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere — has joined the party.
After more than two years of integrating their programs into the MeerKAT system, Breakthrough Listen scientists have finally started using data collected by the array of dishes to look for unusual signals from nearby stars, according to a statement (opens in new tab) released Dec. 1.
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