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SETI Scientists Report Discovery of More Fast Radio Bursts (scitechdaily.com) 19

Posted by EditorDavid from the (S)earch-for-(E)xtra-(T)errestrial-(I)ntelligence dept.
Using a "recently refurbished" telescope array, SETI scientists performed 541 hours of additional observations — and found 35 new "Fast Radio Bursts" (or FRBs). SciTechDaily reports: All 35 FRBs were found in the lower part of the frequency spectrum, each with its unique energy signature. "This work is exciting because it provides both confirmation of known FRB properties and the discovery of some new ones," said the SETI Institute's Dr. Sofia Sheikh, NSF MPS-Ascend Postdoctoral Fellow and lead author. "We're narrowing down the source of FRBs, for example, to extreme objects such as magnetars, but no existing model can explain all of the properties that have been observed so far. It has been wonderful to be part of the first FRB study done with the Allen Telescope Array — this work proves that new telescopes with unique capabilities, like the Allen Telescope Array, can provide a new angle on outstanding mysteries in FRB science."

The detailed findings, recently published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), showcase the intriguing behaviors of FRBs. These mysterious signals exhibit downward frequency drifting, a connection between their bandwidth and center frequency, and changes in burst duration over time. The team also observed something that had never been reported before: there was a noticeable drop in the center frequency of bursts over the two months of observation, revealing an unexpected cosmic slide-whistle...

No clear pattern was found, highlighting the unpredictability of these celestial phenomena.
SETI says its Allen Telescope Array (or ATA) was custom-built for SETI searches, "thanks to the interest and benevolence of many donors, including technologists Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) and Nathan Myhrvold (former Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft)." The Allen Telescope Array offers SETI scientists access to an instrument seven days a week, and permits the search of several different targets (usually nearby star systems) simultaneously. This can result in a speed-up of SETI searches by a factor of at least 100.
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SETI Scientists Report Discovery of More Fast Radio Bursts More

SETI Scientists Report Discovery of More Fast Radio Bursts

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  • SETI is highly worthwhile, but wildly unlikely. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Sunday December 17, 2023 @02:39PM (#64087613)
    It's worthwhile because it brings passion (and thereby resources and talent) into astronomical observations. However, it's very unlikely to find what it seeks. It will find lots of other things via the data it gathers, but the most likely discovery of ETI will be through future analysis of exoplanet atmospheres.

    That there are likely other technological intelligences in the universe (indeed, even this galaxy) should not be considered especially surprising. The cosmos doesn't do "special," in space or time, if the laws of physics that give rise to life are universal.

    • However, it's very unlikely to find what it seeks.

      I wonder how powerful a "man" made radio signal from a distant star would have to be in order for us to detect it.

      Or laser, for that matter, though the would have to aim it right at us.

      • Indeed. The way I think of it is, we're far more likely to hear them splashing in the tub (observing chemistry in a planet's atmosphere) than see them sending us smoke signals (radio emissions directed at us).
      • That answer has been well known for decades : it's easily within the range of military radars of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Later radar systems tend to go towards lower powers because sensors have increased sensitivity, so the window of deployment is closing, but we'll still be blasting evidence of our presence to the neighbourhood for decades to come.

        Obviously, beyond about 70 LY (approaching a thousand star systems), the signals haven't reached there yet.

    • Has a radio ham decoded the pulses yet?
      • Your reason for believing there is a signal in there is ... ?

        First, you'd have to rule out all credible (a rather flexible criterion) natural sources. Which pretty much demands that the signal be either continuous, or predictably repeating. Which few FRBs are - it was only about 5 years ago that the first repeating FRB sources were identified.

  • That well-known patent troll Intellectual Ventures doesn't exist and that Nathan Myhrvold's money all comes from his early days at Microsoft.

  • The way I interpret this article is that to get time on anything built by SETI money, I just need my science target to have a vague scifi connotation. Otherwise I can point it at whatever I want.

    Random stars: out; anything vaguely possibly having a habitable zone planet: in.

    Unless! I find something with a bunch of hot Jupiters around it. Then I can claim it might be like that planet in Asimov's classic story "Nightfall"

  • Make sure (Score:3)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Sunday December 17, 2023 @04:40PM (#64087765)
    It's not something like opening up microwaves again
  • All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together, use them in peace.

  • Cooper | Cooper | Cooper | Cooper

  • Beware of the Dark Forest.
  • In alot of sci-fi, it's sort of assumed that first contact will happen fairly rapidly, like we'll just get signals and/or meet the aliens and things go from there, but suppose it's a bit more "mundane" than that? What if we start picking up their signals and start seeing their culture beamed to us over a long period of time? Art and music and whatever other culture they produce, but that's all we get, we never really have a "conversation"? We see their culture grow over time, but we never actually make any

  • ...it will be an ad from an alien company for whatsis, available at your nearest allo-mart.

  • That's cool how they show the time/frequency plot of the signals in TFA, and you can zoom by clicking (to a degree).

    If they were digital messages, do they have a strong enough signal to reconstruct the bits?

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