The search for intelligent life in an amazing galaxy is short-lived

A team from the University of Manchester has discovered analytical advances that could significantly improve the chances of finding extraterrestrial life in our galaxy.

In new research published today Monthly instructions of the Royal Astronomical Society, Researchers have demonstrated a re-analysis of existing data representing new landmarks in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (CT).

The collaborative research team has dramatically expanded the search for extraterrestrial life from 1,400 stars to 280,000 – an increase in the number of stars analyzed by a factor of more than 200.

The results suggest that at least 0.04% of stellar systems are likely to host advanced cultures with similar or slightly more advanced radio technology than 21st century humans. In addition to modifying the limits of nearby stars, for the first time the team has more distant stars with a warning that the limit has actually been set which will require more powerful transmitters to detect any potential life residing in the outer limits of the galaxy.

Researchers say the analysis can only detect intelligent and technologically advanced cultures that use radio waves as a means of communication – for example, they could not detect “simple” life or non-technical cultures.

The team is made up of Bart Vlodarczyk-Sroka, a Masters student at the University of Manchester in the UK, and his advisor, Professor Michael Garrett, and the director of the Breakthrough Legislation Initiative, Dr. Andrew Simeon has put the best limit ever on its scope. Artificial radio transmitters in the galaxy, dubbed techno-signatures.

Considering the catalog produced by the European Space Agency (ESA) Gaia spacecraft, the researchers recalculated the limit on the prevalence of transmitters around additional stars in the field of view of the radio telescope. By selecting stars that are much larger than the original sample of nearby stars (up to about 33,000 light years), they will be able to increase the number of stars they have studied from 1,327 to 288,315.

Team leader Mike Garrett has always been troubled by the fact that Setty Search does not consider many other cosmic objects that are sensitive to the telescope in addition to the main target. According to Garrett, Gaia has changed all that: “Knowing the locations and distances of these additional sources,” he says, “greatly improves our ability to prevent the spread of terrestrial intelligence in and beyond our own galaxy. We expect a future set.” Also survey to make good use of this approach. ”

“Our results help us place meaningful limits on the prevalence of comparable transmitters from what we can create using twentieth-century technology,” Vlodarzic-Sroka noted.

“We now know that less than 1600 stars are more powerful than the 330 light-year-old host transmitters we have on Earth’s strongest radar. A colony with more powerful transmitters than we can currently produce should be rare in the world. Still. “

The sheer number of stars enabled Volodarzik-Sroka to place some of today’s most stringent limits on the prevalence of powerful radio transmitters in this region of the galaxy. Also, for the first time, the team has been able to do this as a stellar-type task – the expanded sample includes not only a wide range of main-range stars, but also numerous giant stars and white dwarfs.