Is there alien life that signals sends the universe? Research Institute Astron participates in an international study that seeks an answer to that question. From Westerbork we search for signals from space that can indicate alien technologies.
Jessica Dempsey proudly runs between a group of international astronomers who have gathered this week at the huge dishes of the Westerbork telescope. The Australian director of the Netherlands Institute for RadioStronomy (Astron) has just confirmed the collaboration with the universities of Oxford and Manchester.
“A mission to see if there is intelligent life in the universe,” Dempsey calls it. “Is there alien life or are we alone?” She thinks “the most exciting question there is.” “It is the first question that every child asks an astronomer. It is something fundamental for us people. It is really a privilege that we are taking a new step today.”
Her organization now works together with Breakthrough Listen. “We want to see the mysterious signals from the universe. We are in the lucky circumstance that we have an instrument here in Westerbork that can see almost the whole heaven at once.” If signals are consciously or unconsciously sent from other planets ‘then we will listen at least’.
That instrument was screwed out of one of the dishes this week. A receiver that is normally focused on the mirror of the dish is now on the floor. This way it can scan the whole heaven. The recipient is no longer a kind of telephoto lens that is focused on a certain area, but more a fish-eye-lens, which can go in all directions at the same time.
Day and night the recipient searches the whole sky for signals. And when it sees something? “Then we can tell the other telescopes: Hey, we found something interesting! We are quite good at this quickly going the world. In a few seconds or minutes,” says Dempsey.