radio telescope Archives

A preliminary image towards Voyager 1 created using visibilities correlated from COSMIC raw voltages. The synthesised beam (resolving element) of the VLA for this observation is shown in the bottom left of the image, with the white cross indicating the major and minor axis of the elliptical Gaussian. This image was created from five 2 Hz channels at a central frequency of 8420.4191 MHz. A candidate for voyager can be seen towards the bottom left as a red excess close to the shape of the synthesised beam. Further validation of this detection is ongoing. Only the left circular polarisation was imaged.-- [astro-ph.IM

The VLA and High-Frequency SETI: Expanding The Search for Life

by Keith CowingAugust 21, 2026August 21, 2026

[astro-ph.IM] The Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster (COSMIC) runs software that searches for technologies elsewhere in the Universe (“technosignatures”) using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). Specifically, it […]

Scatter plots of potential candidate in frequency, drift rate and signal-to-noise ratio for total intensity and four polarization channels. The color and the size for each point represent the value of SNR in log space. The blue and ornage color bar are the frequency ranges of civil aviation and navigation satellites, respectively. The black dashed lines represent the expected drift rates for each observation date. -- astro-ph.IM

SETI & Technosignatures

Narrowband Radio Technosignature Search Toward 3I/ATLAS with FAST

by Keith CowingJuly 3, 2026July 3, 2026

[astro-ph.IM] 3I/ATLAS is the third confirmed interstellar object passing through the Solar System.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release

Novel Way To Detect Signals From Stellar And Exoplanetary Systems Unveiled

by Keith CowingJanuary 30, 2026

An international team including Cornell researcher Jake Turner has developed a novel analysis method capable of uncovering previously undetectable stellar and exoplanetary signals hidden within archival radio-astronomical data.

Hertzsprung–Russell diagram comparing the BGM-simulated stellar population (background) with the subset of Gaia sources (superimposed in red) for which reliable effective temperatures and absolute magnitudes are available. The Gaia sample is restricted to within 1 kpc due to parallax accuracy, and most white dwarfs lack reliable temperature estimates. Utilising the BGM enables consideration of the complete breadth of stellar types captured within the bycatch population, including bright Main Sequence stars and minimal confusion between faint Main Sequence and white dwarfs. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Simulating The Stellar Bycatch: Constraining The Prevalence Of Extraterrestrial Transmitters Within Radio SETI Surveys

by Keith CowingNovember 26, 2025November 26, 2025

Searches for radio technosignatures place constraints on the prevalence of extraterrestrial transmitters in our Galaxy and beyond. It is important to account for the complete stellar population captured within a […]

(left) Electromagnetic model showing the suppression of AKR and Earth transmitters on the far side of the Moon (Bassett et al. 2020). (Right) Eight candidate sites on the farside identified in Krolikowski & Elvis 2024 for a lunar radio array considering available area and surface smoothness. Further work is necessary to downselect to a single site, potentially through contributions of human exploration to site surveys. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Moon, Status Report

Identifying Habitable Exoplanets With Radio Telescopes On The Lunar Farside

by Keith CowingAugust 21, 2025August 21, 2025

The search for habitable conditions beyond Earth is a top priority in astrophysics.

Spectra and periodograms for several frequency channels with candidate shortwave transmissions (technosignatures) for antenna D during the In-Transit observation day from the DSP. The top row shows the spectra in decibels relative to its own average value, while the bottom row shows the periodogram for each corresponding channel in the top row. The x-axis for the fluctuations in the top panel are indexed by i and are each eight seconds apart, while the x-axis for the periodograms are signal frequencies in Hertz. Note the level of fluctuations in the spectra as well as the dominant periods in the periodograms: the latter exhibit decreasing power modulation with increasing frequency modulation, as expected for shortwave transmissions breaking through the Earth’s ionosphere. -- astro-ph.IM

Artemis & Lunar Exploration, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exploration Gear & Tech, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Missions & Hardware, Moon, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Results from NASA’s First Radio Telescope on the Moon: Terrestrial Technosignatures and the Low-Frequency Galactic Background Observed by ROLSES-1 Onboard the Odysseus Lander

by Keith CowingMarch 15, 2025March 18, 2025

Radiowave Observations on the Lunar Surface of the photo-Electron Sheath instrument (ROLSES- 1) onboard the Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander represents NASA’s first radio telescope on the Moon, and the […]

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Intelligence & Language, Interstellar, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Multibeam SETI Observations Toward Nearby M Dwarfs With FAST

by Keith CowingMarch 5, 2025March 5, 2025

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) targeted searches aim to observe specific areas and objects to find possible technosignatures. Many SETI researches have focused on nearby stars and their planets […]

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release, SETI & Technosignatures

Earth Detecting Earth

by Keith CowingFebruary 5, 2025February 5, 2025

A research team led by Dr. Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute, in collaboration with the Characterizing Atmospheric Technosignatures project and the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center, set out to […]

Continuum noise power and FX complex correlator measurements, observed on MJD 60586, are presented together with the statistical power of 3.7 Hz bandwidth, 0.27 s duration polarized pulse pairs, recorded during the 123.8 day experiment. The high correlator response at 5.5 hr RA is due to the Orion A emission nebula at -5.4º DEC. [10][11]. Instrument delay difference of -82 ns between interferometer elements was compensated by choosing to display the -5 x 16 ns correlator tap. The bandwidth of the continuum and correlator measurements is approximately 50 MHz, at 0.27 s integration. The timedependent geometric space delay was not compensated, resulting in the approximate sawtooth phase response across RA, indicating a period of 0.117 hr RA. The prior pointing direction of interest indicates greater than 6 standard deviations Cohen’s d in the 5.1675 ± 0.00375 hr RA bin, within the prior range, 5.25 ± 0.15 hr RA. A second apparent response is indicated in two adjacent bins centered at 8.8425 hr RA, with apparent RA aliasing at ±0.12 hr RA. Figs. 2 and 3 show detail. -- eess.SP

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A Signal Discovery Step In Interstellar Communication

by Keith CowingDecember 10, 2024December 10, 2024

Prior work using synchronized, geographically spaced radio telescopes, and a radio interferometer, suggests that narrow-bandwidth polarized pulse pair measurements repeatedly falsify a noise-cause hypothesis, given a prior celestial direction of […]

An injection-recovery test using setigen used to score an isolated signal with the DOT algorithm. The isolated linearly-drifting signal seen in the target panel was injected in a region of frequency space known to contain only noise. The signal was given a width of 2 Hz, a drift rate of 0.07 Hz s−1 , and an SNR of 42,000. turboSETI calculates SNR independently from the SNR input into setigen, but nevertheless indicates a relatively strong signal as intended. The low correlation score of 0.019 indicates that the signal detected in the target panel is distinct from the pure noise in the off panel. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release, SETI & Technosignatures, TRAPPIST-1

Scientists Use Allen Telescope Array to Search for Radio Signals in the TRAPPIST-1 Star System

by Keith CowingOctober 16, 2024October 16, 2024

Scientists at the SETI Institute and partners from Penn State University used the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) to search for signs of alien technology in the TRAPPIST-1 star system. The […]