A large-scale sky scan will display alien laser beams

A large-scale sky scan will display alien laser beams

At this particular moment, an ambitious hunt for smart aliens is underway. The Trillion Planet Survey (Search for Trillion Planets) has begun scanning for the large Andromeda galaxy, as well as the Milky Way, in search of light beams that could have been created by advanced alien civilizations.

Researchers believe that there must be a civilization with our or higher level of technological development. So, it will try to make itself felt with the help of an optical beam, which is available for review by the Earth. It is also believed that the wavelength of transmission of the beam will be understandable for terrestrial instruments. And the “lighthouse” should “burn” long enough for us to fix it. If these requirements are met, and the power and beam diameter are consistent with the civilization class like Earth, then our system will detect this signal.

The system uses an image analysis pipeline and a global network of small (meter) automatic telescopes at the Las Cumbres Observatory. Each telescope covers a 3% piece of Andromeda, which is 2.5 million light years distant from us. The team will combine these images to form a single image, which will then be compared with a control frame. Any differences between them are theoretically capable of indicating the presence of a light signal from an extraterrestrial mind. For example, the system will be able to fix the satellite of the newcomers, flashed in the frame. The cosmologist Philip Lubin, who has extensive experience with space lasers, also joined the project. He remains a key player in the Starshot Breakthrough project (cost $ 100 million) to develop a space flight system consisting of lasers and tiny ships on sails. Lasers would be able to accelerate robotic probes up to 20% of the light speed, which will make it possible to reach the nearest exoplanet in a few decades.

A large-scale sky scan will display alien laser beams

An array of lasers on Earth will be pushing a nano-apparatus with sails to a distant star system in the Breakthrough Starshot project. If the aliens have created similar programs, then we can fix these rays.

The Trillion Planet Survey project is already watching Andromeda. Analysis of the pictures will turn the story in just a few weeks, but such reviews can be carried out endlessly. For over 60 years, the SETI project has been hunting for radio signals. The new program focuses on the optical system, which will expand the range of research.

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