Is an asteroid from interstellar space really a probe from an alien civilization? Probably not, but Breakthrough Listen wants to find out.
The First Ones
Are we the first civilization to arise in the cosmos?
See And Be Seen
Perhaps we should focus our SETI efforts on stars that could see Earth transit the Sun. It’s an interesting idea that’s worth considering.
Dead Aliens Tell No Tales
The Universe may be silent because planetary extinction is the rule rather than the exception.
The Listeners
The Breakthrough Listen project, funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, will use radio and optical observatories to listen for messages from alien civilizations.
E.T. Phone Home
It’s a popular idea that our television shows could be seen by aliens light years away, but our signals aren’t quite that clear.
Wow!
The Big Ear radio telescope was built in 1963 to survey the sky for extragalactic radio sources. It is a type of radio telescope that uses the rotation of the Earth to make observations. The receiver of the radio telescope can be moved north or south, but to view things east and west you have to wait for the Earth to rotate in the right direction. This type of telescope is perfect for making sky surveys, because you can point it in a particular declination (the sky version of latitude), and then let the Earth’s motion move you through a full circle of sky over the course of a day.
Forever Alone
It’s estimated that there are between 8 and 20 billion potentially habitable Earth-like worlds within our galaxy alone. Those are just the ones that orbit Sun-like stars. If you add in stars like red dwarfs, the number of potentially habitable planets rises to over 40 billion.