UCLA SETI Science and Communications Team
Left to right: Ella Friess, Jaylind Gray, Megan Li, Jeremy Lin, Priscella Yun, and Professor Jean-Luc Margot
Professor Jean-Luc Margot
We conducted a search for narrowband radio signals in 2020–2023 with the L-band receiver (1.15–1.73 GHz) of the 100 m diameter Green Bank Telescope. We captured radio emissions from a total of 11,860 stars and planetary systems. All detections were either automatically rejected or visually inspected and confirmed to be of anthropogenic nature, i.e., radio frequency interference (RFI). On the basis of our results and ESA’s Gaia survey, we can place bounds on the prevalence of transmitters in the Galaxy. The fraction of stars located within 1000 parsecs of the Sun that host detectable transmitters is at most 0.18% (95% confidence level). Our article contains other interesting results, including the fact that our pipeline can natively detect signals previously identified with AI techniques.
On February 14, 2023, UCLA SETI launched a citizen science collaboration to share the excitement of the search for life in the universe with the general public. The platform is designed for ages 9–99 and is accessible at http://arewealone.earth from a desktop, laptop, or smartphone. After a quick tutorial, volunteers can classify UCLA SETI data and identify interesting signals. In the process, they are helping us train artificial intelligence tools that will accelerate our search. More than 20,000 volunteers have joined the collaboration so far. The citizen science collaboration is built on the Zooniverse platform with funding from The Planetary Society, the NASA Citizen Science Seed Funding Program, and a generous gift from Robert Meadow and Carrie Menkel-Meadow.