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Breakthrough Listen (BL) is a ten-year initiative to search for
signatures of technologically capable life beyond Earth via radio and
optical observations of the local Universe. A core part of the BL
program is a comprehensive survey of 1702 nearby stars at radio
wavelengths (1–10 GHz). Price et al. have recently we reported on
observations with the 64m Parkes radio telescope, and the 100-m
Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, USA. Between
2016 January and 2019 March, a sample of 1138 stars was observed at
Green Bank using the 1.10–1.90 GHz and 1.80–2.80 GHz receivers, and
189 stars were observed with Parkes over 2.60–3.45 GHz. These data
were searched for the presence of signals suggestive of
extra-terrestrial civilisations. After excluding events with
characteristics consistent with terrestrial radio interference, we are
left with zero candidates. These observations constitute the most
comprehensive search over 1.10–3.45 GHz for technosignatures to
date. The figure above shows the distribution of observed sources in
equatorial coordinates. Sources observed with Green Bank at both
L-band (a wavelength of 20cm) and S-band (10cm) are plotted in purple;
sources only observed at L-band are plotted with red crosses; sources
only observed at S-band are plotted with yellow squares; and sources
observed with Parkes at 10cm are plotted with aqua diamonds.
More details are given in
the paper, published in the Astronomical Journal.
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