By 
May 1st, 2023
Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico.
Credit: Bettymaya Foott, NRAO/AUI/NSF
A new processing system for the Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is dubbed “COSMIC” – the Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster.
COSMIC is spearheaded by the SETI Institute, in collaboration with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Breakthrough Listen Initiative.
Now a massive radio array is joining the SETI quest and use of COSMIC to scout for signals from other galactic civilizations.
Credit: Breakthrough Listen
Desert real estate
Enter the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), situated about 50 miles west of Socorro, New Mexico.
VLA is collecting data that scientists will analyze for the type of emissions that only artificial transmitters make, signals that would reveal the existence of a technically accomplished society.
The VLA consists of 27 antennas spread over 23 miles of desert real estate. Since 2017 the facility has been engaged in a radio reconnaissance of 80 percent of the sky.
Credit: SETI Post-detection Hub
Alien transmitter
While that VLA endeavor continues, observational data is being fed into a special receiver sporting very narrow (approximately one hertz wide) channels.
“Researchers expect that any signals from a deliberately constructed transmitter will contain such narrow-band components, and their discovery would indicate that the signal is not produced by nature, but by an alien transmitter,” explains a SETI Institute statement.
“COSMIC operates commensally, which means it works in the background using a copy of the data astronomers are taking for other scientific purposes,” said Paul Demorest, Scientist and Group Lead for VLA/VLBA Science Support at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. “This is an ideal and very efficient way to get large amounts of telescope time to search for rare signals.
More comprehensive
By combining VLA sensitivity with COSMIC, the result is roughly a thousand times more comprehensive than any previous SETI search.
“History shows that major improvements in the sensitivity and range of exploratory experiments are often rewarded with the detection of a signal,” the SETI Institute statement adds. “If so, this effort might see the uncovering of a radio whisper that would tell us that we’re not the only intelligent inhabitants of the Milky Way Galaxy.”
If it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space. In the movie Contact, a radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth…via the Very Large Array.
Credit: Warner Brothers
Also go to this interesting research paper — “Inferring the Rate of Technosignatures from 60 yr of Nondetection” — available at:
Posted in Space News
