[R]adio signals continue to be the most popular SETI target, as focused radio emissions could signal the presence of an alien civilization, whether the leakage of those radio signals is deliberate or accidental.
The $10 million Breakthrough Listen project—a 10-year initiative founded six years ago by Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and the late physicist Stephen Hawking—continues in this tradition, searching the depths of space for signs of radio signals produced by aliens.
For its latest survey, the Breakthrough Listen team, based at the SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, used the Green Bank Radio Telescope in West Virginia and CSIRO’s Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia to gather roughly 600 hours of radio observations [surveying 60 million stars.]
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No repeating radio bursts consistent with an alien beacon were detected within these parameters. No extraterrestrial intelligences were detected, but the scientists did manage to capture transient events consistent with magnetars, so that will be of interest to astronomers who study this type of neutron star.
We can’t seem to find any evidence of alien life despite our conscientious searches. It’s becoming hard to not be pessimistic about the whole SETI endeavor, but there’s something we have to keep in mind: The search for intelligent alien life has only just begun.
