Astronomers Eavesdrop On Nearby Star System To Find Aliens

Researchers on a hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence have reportedly taken the help of a powerful radio telescope to tune in to a neighboring star system, which is located relatively near to our planet. The aim of the scientists is to detect any sound, howsoever weak, that could signal the existence of an alien civilization. Astronomers from the SETI Institute used the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California to eavesdrop on Trappist 1, a red dwarf star system that has at least three habitable exoplanets to see if it is transmitting radio waves.

Last year Kepler had detected a mysterious transit signal from a star known as Tabby's star, officially called KIC 8462852. The transit, which basically measures the dimness in the brightness of a star when a planet orbits it, was nothing like ever seen before because the brightness dimmed by 20 percent. Scientists were puzzled by the occurrence, and suggested that a swarm of comets may have been the cause of the strange signal.

The researchers also put forward another hypothesis that the mysterious transit could be proof that an advanced alien civilization was constructing a mega structure around their parent star. However, since Tabby's star is located more than 1,400 light-years away, it would be quite unlikely to detect alien radio signals with the ATA, unless of course the inhabitants of that world were deliberately beaming their radio waves at us. Therefore researchers chose Trappist 1, even though there is no proof of strange transit signals around the small star, because it can be habitable and is located only 40 light years away. Consequently, any signal transmitted from the star system would be many times stronger than another signal with the same strength from a star system located farther away.

Incidentally, the ATA was focused on Trappist 1 for two days in May this year to search for any artificial narrowband signal about 1 Hz or less, though it did not lead to any positive result in the hunt for aliens. The astronomers from SETI have calculated that if aliens are transmitting from Trappist 1 then they would have constructed a radio antennae with a width of a 300 meters and power of 300 kilowatts. Though, the team could not really detect anything, but such an exercise is a step forward in investigating radio frequency spectrum regions and making calculations of the power output from hypothetical alien civilizations, which will help in extraterrestrial intelligence detection in the future.