Breakthrough Listen Partners With China on SETI
National Astronomical Observatories of China, Breakthrough Initiatives Launch Global Collaboration in Search for Intelligent life in the Universe
“The National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) is joining forces with the Breakthrough Initiatives to launch a coordinated search for evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth Using some of the world’s most powerful telescopes. NAOC’s brand-new FAST telescope – the world’s largest filled-aperture radio receiver – will join the Breakthrough Listen program at Green Bank Telescope in the US and the Parkes Observatory in Australia, and together the organization’s will exchange observing plans, search methods and data – including the rapid sharing of promising new signals for additional observation and analysis. The two parties are also planning a series of meetings and conferences to refine search strategies, data analyses and results. At a signing ceremony at NAOC headquarters in Beijing, the collaboration was announced via a joint statement by Prof. Jun Yan, Director General of NAOC, and Pete Worden, Chairman of Breakthrough Prize Foundation and Executive Director of Breakthrough Initiatives. They looked forward to “a long and productive scientific collaboration,” and invited scientists around the world to join in “one of humanity’s greatest quests.”
Open source data. Open source code. No US government funding. No US government facilities. All good. What could anyone possibly say that’s bad? Though my cynical side will bet someone will try cause a stir.
I’m not new to the antenna business at (much) lower frequencies but I wonder what is gained with the filled aperture over a mesh design- bandwidth, sensitivity, or?
Filled means more than a solid reflector versus a mesh. They are using the term to mean a single dish versus multiple, arrayed dishes. With arrayed antennas, you can get fantastic resolution, but the side lobes (if you background is in radio) or point spread function (same thing but what an astronomer would call it), can be incredibly messy. With a single dish, you get a nice, clear point spread function, but to get high resolution, the dish has to be really big.
Thanks, didn’t realize there were problems with side lobes in array receivers.
Say, isn’t Breakthrough financed by a Russian? This could be part of a strategy by China to balance economic ties among US, Russia, EU, and third world.
Thanks; didn’t know that about arrays, either. I wonder if the ground station pattern affects the side lobes…perhaps arranging the stations in a rectangle or circle helps with side suppression.
There is definitely an art to laying out an array of radio telescopes. I’m not an expert, but the experts seem to like an X or Y pattern. I think it has something to do with maximizing the number of dish-to-dish spacings. The VLA actually has the antennas on railroad tracks, so they can move them around and reconfigure the array.