{"id":17374,"date":"2022-06-23T01:34:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T17:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-big-data-could-help-seti-researchers-intensify-the-search-for-alien-civilizations\/"},"modified":"2022-06-23T01:34:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T17:34:15","slug":"how-big-data-could-help-seti-researchers-intensify-the-search-for-alien-civilizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-big-data-could-help-seti-researchers-intensify-the-search-for-alien-civilizations\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Big Data\u2019 could help SETI researchers intensify the search for alien civilizations"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"493\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Artist_s_impression_of_Gaia-630x493.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-706015\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Artist_s_impression_of_Gaia-630x493.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Artist_s_impression_of_Gaia-1260x986.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Artist_s_impression_of_Gaia-768x601.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Artist_s_impression_of_Gaia-1536x1202.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Artist_s_impression_of_Gaia-2048x1603.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>Artwork shows the Gaia spacecraft against the background of the Milky Way. (ESA Illustration \/ D. Ducros)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Could far-off aliens be sending out signals telling us they exist? If so, how would we know where to look? Researchers focusing on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, have laid out a new strategy for focusing their quest.<\/p>\n<p>The strategy applies simple trigonometry to millions of data points, with the aim of seeking out potential interstellar beacons that are synchronized with hard-to-miss astronomical phenomena such as supernovae. <\/p>\n<p>University of Washington astronomer James Davenport and his colleagues lay out the plan in a research paper submitted to the arXiv pre-print server this month. The idea is also the subject of a talk that Davenport\u2019s giving this week at the Breakthrough Discuss conference in California.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the technique is very straightforward. It\u2019s dealing with triangles and ellipses, things that are like high-school geometry, which is sort of my speed,\u201d Davenport told GeekWire half-jokingly. \u201cI like simple shapes and things I can calculate easily.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The pre-print paper, which hasn\u2019t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, draws upon data from the European Space Agency\u2019s Gaia sky-mapping mission. But Davenport said the technique is tailor-made for the terabytes of astronomical data that will be coming from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory nightly when it goes online, a couple of years from now.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"ET in 30 minutes or your money back - Astronomy on Tap Seattle\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UzZv7MhdXT0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Davenport and his SETI colleagues start out with a couple of assumptions: First, the aliens have to want to communicate, and they have to be able to build a means of communicating. \u201cThe idea from the extraterrestrial\u2019s standpoint would be, perhaps you have the technology and the capacity to make some kind of beacon, some kind of lighthouse that you want to shine,\u201d Davenport said. \u201cBut it\u2019s very expensive to shine in all directions at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So when do you turn that beacon on? One strategy would be to synchronize the beacon\u2019s flashes with observations of cosmic flare-ups. \u201cIt\u2019s like playing \u2018Marco Polo,&#8217;\u201d Davenport explained. \u201cThis big thing has happened. Somebody yells \u2018Marco,\u2019 and you yell \u2018Polo,\u2019 or you say, \u2018We saw it, too. Do you see us?&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The best example of a cosmic flare-up in recent times would be SN 1987A, a supernova blast that occurred at a distance of 168,000 light-years and was spotted on Earth 35 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The light from SN 1987A\u2019s flash has been spreading out in a widening sphere for more than 168,000 years, and will continue spreading out to farther reaches of our celestial neighborhood. If a farther-out alien civilization wanted to synchronize its beacon flash with the supernova flash, we would see it on a time-delayed basis, due to the finite speed of light.<\/p>\n<p>If you know the distance to a given star, it\u2019s relatively simple to figure out when it\u2019s on the edge of a \u201cSETI Ellipsoid,\u201d where the timing is right for the alien beacon flash to occur and have its light detected by earthly astronomers. But it\u2019s not so simple to keep track of the millions of stars in the ever-widening ellipsoid.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"409\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ellipsoid-630x409.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-705995\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ellipsoid-630x409.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ellipsoid-768x498.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/ellipsoid.jpg 1033w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>The \u201cSETI ellipsoid\u201d is an egg-shaped zone of space where alien civilizations would have had enough time to observe an astronomical event (in this case, the SN 1987A supernova blast) and then send out a signal that could be observed from Earth. Click on the image for a larger version. (Davenport et al. via Arxiv)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Two trends in astronomy are making it progressively easier to monitor SN 1987A\u2019s SETI Ellipsoid. One is the move toward large-scale sky surveys such as Gaia, which is measuring the distance to faraway stars with unprecedented levels of precision. The other is the rise of \u201cBig Data\u201d analytical tools, such as the algorithms being developed at the University of Washington\u2019s DiRAC Institute.<\/p>\n<p>Using such tools, Davenport and his colleagues checked thousands of stars in Gaia\u2019s catalog, all within 326 light-years (100 parsecs) of Earth. \u201cThe vast majority of nearby stars are still viable targets for monitoring over time,\u201d they reported.<\/p>\n<p>On average, 734 stars are due to pass through the SETI Ellipsoid on a yearly basis. \u201cWhile this is a large number of targets to monitor each year, it is well within the capability for many surveys,\u201d the researchers say.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to scanning the skies for synchronized signals, SN 1987A isn\u2019t the only game in town: Other SETI Ellipsoids can be plotted for a wide range of astronomical phenomena, including galactic novae, gamma-ray bursts and neutron star mergers.<\/p>\n<p>Identifying what appears to be a synchronized signal would be only the first step in an investigation of a given target.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe worry is that we end up with a scenario like the \u2018Wow Signal,\u2019 where you\u2019ve got this really interesting signal, and no repetition or other follow-up to show you what it is, or if it\u2019s ever repeated,\u201d Davenport said. \u201cThat is definitely a concern.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A seemingly synchronized flash could well turn out to be a cosmic coincidence, perhaps involving mysterious anomalies like the dimming and brightening in a star system known as KIC 8462852 or \u201cTabby\u2019s Star.\u201d  Several years ago, some astronomers proposed that the phenomenon might be traced to an alien megastructure, but now the leading hypothesis is that a dust cloud was the cause. \u201cIt\u2019s still a very interesting object, because we still don\u2019t know what the dust is,\u201d Davenport said.<\/p>\n<p>Davenport has been enlisting students to develop ways to use Big Data more efficiently for SETI. \u201cThere are lots of tricks that we can take, and we can write them down as algorithms and stick them into databases and computers and big machines, and then let them run,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to SETI Ellipsoids, such algorithms could focus on what\u2019s known as the Earth Transit Zone, a band of the night sky where alien astronomers could theoretically see Earth transiting our own home star. And in addition to analyzing the Gaia database, Davenport and his SETI colleagues could sift through observations coming from the Zwicky Transient Facility and NASA\u2019s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, plus the data that\u2019s due to be generated by the Rubin Observatory\u2019s LSST survey.<\/p>\n<p>Davenport acknowledged that the ellipsoid search strategy was a long shot \u2014 which is why it\u2019s important to leverage existing data over the long term, perhaps over the course of centuries.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know what some other civilization might think is the right way to build a lighthouse,\u201d Davenport said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what would make sense to them, or what would be conspicuous. So instead, let\u2019s make the best use of the data that we have, because we\u2019re spending a lot of time and energy and money developing that data for a host of other reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>In addition to Davenport, the authors of \u201cSearching the SETI Ellipsoid with Gaia\u201d include Barbara Cabrales, Sofia Sheikh, Steve Croft, Andrew P.V. Siemion, Daniel Giles and Ann Marie Cody.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Artwork shows the Gaia spacecraft against the background of the Milky Way. (ESA Illustration \/ D. Ducros) Could far-off aliens be sending out signals telling us they exist? If so, how would we know where to look? Researchers focusing on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, have laid out a new strategy for focusing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3226,3754,4633,4368,4369],"class_list":["post-17374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-gaia","tag-seti","tag-technosignatures","tag-university-of-washington","tag-vera-rubin-observatory"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}