Very Large Array radio telescope joins hunt for alien signals

The National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is joining the hunt for extraterrestrial life. The powerful radio telescope is gathering data that will be analyzed for the specific type of emissions that only artificial transmitters can create - signals that would betray the existence of a technically accomplished society.

This represents another step forward in humanity's ongoing quest to unravel the mysteries of the universe and uncover the secrets of other civilizations beyond our own.

VLA, located about 50 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico, consists of 27 antennas spread over 23 miles of desert real estate. Since 2017, it has been involved in the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) aimed at conducting a comprehensive radio reconnaissance of 80 percent of the sky. As this survey is conducted, a portion of the data will be directed into a specialized receiver with very narrow channels, approximately one hertz wide.

Scientists believe that signals from an artificial transmitter would contain such narrow-band components, which would indicate that the signal is not of natural origin but is instead produced by an alien transmitter, the SETI Institute said in a press release on Monday.

The SETI Institute, in collaboration with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Breakthrough Listen Initiative, is spearheading the new processing system, dubbed the Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster or COSMIC.

Coupled with VLA's exquisite sensitivity, COSMIC is expected to be around a thousand times more comprehensive than any prior SETI search. Scientists are optimistic that they will be able to detect a radio signal that would prove that intelligent life exists beyond our planet in the Milky Way galaxy.

"COSMIC operates commensally, which means it works in the background using a copy of the data astronomers are taking for other scientific purposes. This is an ideal and very efficient way to get large amounts of telescope time to search for rare signals," said Paul Demorest, Scientist and Group Lead for VLA/VLBA Science Support at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.