SPACE — NASA and Breakthrough Initiatives will collaborate to search for intelligent alien life, according to an October 23 press release from Breakthrough Initiatives.
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will cooperate with Breakthrough Listen's facilities around the world.
TESS, launched as a successor to the spaceprobe Kepler in 2018, carries four wide view cameras and advanced instruments capable of detecting small, rocky planets similar to Earth that could support life.
Listen's primary facilities, including the Green Bank and Parkes Telescopes and MeerKAT, will take part in the collaboration that is expected to furnish meaningful data and refine analysis strategy.
Advanced alien civilizations could engage in large scale engineering projects by building megastructures that interfere with stellar light, according to Breakthrough Initiatives.
TESS could detect these variations in stellar light, known as lightcurves, allowing researchers to analyse abnormal or interesting changes in stellar brightness.
Advanced alien civilizations could also emit signals known as technosignatures via transmitters, propulsion systems and other technological apparatus.
TESS increases the probability of detecting technosignatures by only observing planets that pass their host stars as seen from Earth, or along their orbital planes where transmissions are most likely.
