. 24/7 Space News .
EXO WORLDS
Breakthrough Listen to collaborate with scientists from NASA's TESS Team
by Staff Writers
New York NY (SPX) Oct 24, 2019

illustration only

Breakthrough Listen announced this week at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington, DC, a new collaboration with scientists working on NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

The new collaboration will be led by TESS Deputy Science Director, MIT Professor Sara Seager; S. Pete Worden, Executive Director of the Breakthrough Initiatives; Dr. Andrew Siemion, leader of the Breakthrough Listen science team at the University of California, Berkeley's SETI Research Center; and will engage Listen partners and collaborators worldwide.

The TESS and Listen collaboration will expand Breakthrough Listen's target list (adding over 1,000 "objects of interest" identified by TESS); refine Listen's analysis strategy (for example, utilizing new knowledge about planetary alignments to predict when transmissions might be more likely to occur); and provide more meaningful statistics in the event of non-detections.

Observations will take place using Listen's primary facilities (the Green Bank and Parkes Telescopes, MeerKAT, and the Automated Planet Finder), as well as partner facilities including VERITAS, NenuFAR, FAST, the Murchison Widefield Array, LOFAR stations in Ireland and Sweden, Jodrell Bank Observatory and e-MERLIN, Keck Observatory, and the Sardinia Radio Telescope, along with the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array.

"It's exciting that the world's most powerful SETI search, with our partner facilities across the globe, will be collaborating with the TESS team and our most capable planet-hunting machine," remarked Dr. Worden. "We're looking forward to working together as we try to answer one of the most profound questions about our place in the universe: Are we alone?"

The TESS mission measures "light curves" (how the brightness of stars changes over time) to look for telltale dips caused by "transits" - where a planet passes in front of the star as viewed from Earth. The cutting-edge instruments on TESS are sensitive enough to detect small, rocky planets similar to Earth. Such planets are prime targets for follow-up by NASA programs, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, that seek to measure planetary atmospheres. Careful measurements of atmospheric composition could result in the detection of "biosignatures" - indicators that biological processes may be taking place on worlds other than Earth.

As well as looking for biosignatures, astrobiologists search for "technosignatures" - indicators of technology that may have been developed by advanced civilizations. Also known as SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence), technosignature searches use powerful telescopes to look for signals coming from space that appear to have arisen from transmitters, propulsion devices, or other engineering.

No unambiguous technosignatures have been seen to date, but the chances of detection are higher than they have ever been, in large part due to Breakthrough Listen - the most sensitive, comprehensive, and intensive search for advanced life on other worlds ever performed. Listen is using facilities across the globe, including cutting-edge optical telescopes, to search for powerful lasers, and the world's most capable radio telescopes to search for signals over a wide range of the radio spectrum.

In the past three decades over 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered - many by TESS's predecessor, the Kepler spacecraft. According to recent estimates, the average number of planets per star is greater than one. As a result, technosignature searches operate in a "target-rich" environment, observing stars whether or not confirmed planets are known to exist around them. Nevertheless, as the haul of confirmed exoplanets continues to grow, the additional information about these systems is very useful for optimizing SETI strategies.

Launched in April 2018, TESS has four wide-field cameras, each monitoring a region of sky 24 degrees across (about the width of the span of your hand when held at arm's length). Light curves for 20,000 stars are measured every 2 minutes, and in addition, the brightness of every pixel in the cameras is recorded every 30 minutes.

TESS will observe over 85% of the sky - around 400 times more than Kepler - and is predicted to find as many as 10,000 new planets. Most of the TESS targets are considerably closer to Earth than those viewed by Kepler, enabling technosignature searches to probe for fainter transmitters.

And because TESS only sees planets that pass in front of their host star as viewed from Earth, all the planetary systems it detects will be edge-on. A large fraction (roughly 70%) of radio leakage from Earth-based transmitters is emitted in the plane of Earth's orbit; if the same is true for any transmitters developed by extraterrestrial intelligence, observing the systems edge-on will offer the best chance of detection.

In addition to targeting of TESS planets with Listen facilities, the TESS light curves themselves will be searched for anomalies. A planet transit produces a well-understood variation in detected light from the star, but large-scale engineering projects (for example, "megastructures" constructed in orbit) could block the stellar light in more complex ways. The TESS analysis pipeline is in essence a wide-field anomaly detector, and stars that behave strangely are interesting not just as technosignature candidates, but as potential laboratories for studying interesting astrophysics.

"The discovery by the Kepler spacecraft of Boyajian's star, an object with wild, and apparently random, variations in its light curve, sparked great excitement and a range of possible explanations, of which megastructures were just one," said Dr. Siemion. "Follow-up observations have suggested that dust particles in orbit around the star are responsible for the dimming, but studies of anomalies like this are expanding our knowledge of astrophysics, as well as casting a wider net in the search for technosignatures."

"We are very enthusiastic about joining the Breakthrough Listen SETI search," said Prof. Sara Seager. "Out of all the exoplanet endeavors only SETI holds the promise for identifying signs of intelligent life."

Breakthrough Listen is a scientific program in search for evidence of technological life in the universe. It aims to survey one million nearby stars, the entire galactic plane and 100 nearby galaxies at a wide range of radio and optical bands.

https://tess.mit.edu TESS

http://seti.berkeley.edu BSRC


Related Links
Breakthrough Initiatives
Lands Beyond Beyond - extra solar planets - news and science
Life Beyond Earth


Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly


paypal only
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal


EXO WORLDS
Looking for alien lurkers
Lafayette CA (SPX) Sep 23, 2019
The most recently discovered group of rocky bodies nearby Earth are termed co-orbital objects. An attractive location for extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) to locate a probe to observe Earth throughout our deep past are the co-orbital objects. They most recently discovered group of rocky bodies nearby Earth. Co-orbital objects approach Earth very closely every year at distances much shorter than anything except the moon. They have the same orbital period as Earth. These near-Earth objects provid ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.



Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

EXO WORLDS
How the International Space Station is helping us get to the Moon

Iran to discuss possibility of sending its astronaut to ISS with Russia

NASA's Bridenstine boosts international pitch for moon, Mars missions

Nanoracks and Kayser to jointly open temperature controlled microgravity research on ISS

EXO WORLDS
NASA attaches first of 4 RS-25 engines to Artemis I rocket stage

New rocket fairing design offers smoother quieter ride

New era of locally-sourced resources in space

Rocket Lab teams with Kongsberg for Electron and Photon ground support

EXO WORLDS
Naming a NASA Mars rover can change your life

Mars 2020 Rover unwrapped and ready for more testing

Mars InSight's 'Mole' is moving again

Mars once had salt lakes similar to Earth

EXO WORLDS
China prepares for space station construction

China's rocket-carrying ships depart for transportation mission

China's KZ-1A rocket launches two satellites

China's newly launched communication satellite suffers abnormality

EXO WORLDS
SpaceX to launch 42,000 satellites

Launch of the European AGILE 4.0 research project

SpaceX seeking many more satellites for space-based internet grid

OmegA team values partnerships with customer, suppliers

EXO WORLDS
Automating collision avoidance

World's fastest supercomputer prepares for mega-telescope project

Ten highlights from NASA's Van Allen Probes mission

Sounding rocket tech could enable simultaneous, multi-point measurements

EXO WORLDS
When Exoplanets Collide

Ancient microbes are living inside Europe's deepest meteorite crater

Cascades of gas around young star indicate early stages of planet formation

The search for extrasolar planets continues

EXO WORLDS
NASA's Juno prepares to jump Jupiter's shadow

Huge Volcano on Jupiter's Moon Io Erupts on Regular Schedule

Stony-iron meteoroid caused August impact flash at Jupiter

Storms on Jupiter are disturbing the planet's colorful belts









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.