Eavesdropping on the Universe

EavesdroppingAstronomers say that it is now theoretically possible to detect Earth-like civilizations in space by making use of future facility for radio astronomy such as The Low Frequency Demonstrator (LFD) of the Mileura Wide-Field Array (MWA) currently under construction in Australia.

"Soon, we may be eavesdropping on signals from Galactic civilizations," says theorist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "This is the first time in history that humans will be capable of finding a civilization like ours among the stars."

Loeb and Zaldarriaga calculate that by staring at the sky for a month, the MWA-LFD could detect Earth-like radio signals from a distance of up to 30 light-years, which would encompass approximately 1,000 stars. More powerful broadcasts could be detected to even greater distances. Future observatories like the Square Kilometer Array could detect Earth-like broadcasts from 10 times farther away, which would encompass 100 million stars.

Link & Image: Physorg via Slashdot
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