Truth is out there – Trinity College going in search of alien life
Oct 24, 2023
Scientists in Trinity College have begun a quest to see if we are alone in the universe, teaming up with a Swedish facility to scan for 'signs of life' from other planets.
Known as 'technosignatures', these scientific markers provide evidence of past or present technologies and would provide support for there being intelligent, alien life in other parts of the universe.
The group will be using the Irish LOFAR Telescope (Low-frequency Array) located in Birr, Co Offaly, along with its counterpart in Onsala, Sweden (just south of Gothenburg), and the project is led by Associate Professor of Radio Astronomy in Trinity’s School of Physics, and Head of the Irish LOFAR Telescope, Professor Evan Keane.
Scientists in Trinity College have begun a quest to see if we are alone in the universe, teaming up with a Swedish facility to scan for 'signs of life' from other planets.
Known as 'technosignatures', these scientific markers provide evidence of past or present technologies and would provide support for there being intelligent, alien life in other parts of the universe.
The group will be using the Irish LOFAR Telescope (Low-frequency Array) located in Birr, Co Offaly, along with its counterpart in Onsala, Sweden (just south of Gothenburg), and the project is led by Associate Professor of Radio Astronomy in Trinity’s School of Physics, and Head of the Irish LOFAR Telescope, Professor Evan Keane.
Although scientists have been searching the skies and beyond for extraterrestrial radio signals for more than 60 years, most of the research projects have relied on single observatories.
As a result, there's a limit to their ability to filter out the haze of terrestrial interference on earth, making it more difficult to identify those not from our planet.
Also, most of these researchers' efforts focused on frequencies above 1 GHz, limiting the search even more.
The teams at Trinity College Dublin, the Breakthrough Listen team (who have developed dedicated instruments for this research) and the Onsala Space Observatory will be using a variety of telescope techniques allowing them to search for signals at much lower frequencies.
This, along with using multiple sites to perform the readings, will mean that the scientists evaluating the data will be able to understand what is an actual extraterrestrial reading as opposed to a 'false positive' one caused by interference from Earth.
Speaking on the research, Professor Keane said: 'In the last 50 years evidence has steadily mounted that the constituents and conditions necessary for life are relatively common in the universe, which begs one of life’s greatest unanswered questions: are we really alone?
'To some people the "Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, or SETI" might seem like something from a movie, but it has been a scientific pursuit for decades, and for a host of very good reasons.
'With this project we are basing our search on the common assumption that civilisations elsewhere in the universe may employ similar technologies to those developed on Earth.
'As a result radio frequencies are a logical domain for conducting SETI surveys due to the widespread use of telecommunications and radar and our access to next-gen radio telescopes offers a great chance for a deep dive into the Universe.'
Owen Johnson, PhD Candidate in Trinity’s School of Physics working on the project, added: 'What makes surveys like this one truly captivating is the fact that we're pushing these telescopes to their absolute limits, directing them towards substantial portions of the sky.
'As a result, we have the exciting possibility of discovering all sorts of wild and wondrous phenomena during this process and if we're very fortunate, even encountering our cosmic neighbours.'
https://extra.ie/2023/10/24/news/irish-news/trinity-college-space-research