Astronomers searching for radio signals that could be signs of extraterrestrial life have just gained access to South Africa's MeerKAT telescope.
One of the world's largest telescopes has just joined the hunt for signs of alien life elsewhere in the cosmos.
After more than two years of integrating their programs into the MeerKAT system, Breakthrough Listen scientists have finally started using data collected by the array of dishes to look for unusual signals from nearby stars, according to a statement released Dec. 1. "MeerKAT can see an area of the sky 50 times bigger than the GBT can view at once," Andrew Siemion , principal investigator of Breakthrough Listen and director of the University of California Berkeley's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Research Center, said in the statement."Such a large field of view typically contains many stars that are interesting technosignature targets.
Using MeerKAT, Breakthrough Listen will be able to scan more than 1 million stars during the next two years, which is"very exciting," Cherry Ng , an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto and a project scientist at Breakthrough Listen, said in the statement.
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