What is COSMIC, a project to explore extraterrestrial life forms by piggybacking on existing radio telescopes?
Considering the vastness of the universe, there is a high possibility that life forms exist on planets other than Earth, and many scientists have been searching for extraterrestrial life forms since ancient times. On January 8, 2024,
COSMIC: An Ethernet-based Commensal, Multimode Digital Backend on the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - IOPscience
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ad0fe0
COSMIC: The SETI Institute is Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe with Breakthrough Technology at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array
https://www.seti.org/press-release/cosmic-seti-institute-unlocking-mysteries-universe-breakthrough-technology-karl-g-jansky-very-large
SETI scientists begin huge new hunt for intelligent aliens | Space
https://www.space.com/cosmic-seti-alien-life-search-underway
COSMIC is a project to search for extraterrestrial life forms using observation data from the Karl Jansky Very Large Interferometric Radio Telescopes (VLA) in New Mexico, USA.
VLA uses 27 parabolic antennas with a diameter of 25 m to move along a Y-shaped track with a side of 21 km to detect weak radio waves coming from space and perform astronomical observations. COSMIC has built a system within the VLA operational facility, which amplifies and divides the digital signals from each parabolic antenna and sends them to the computer server. Using this data, teams such as the SETI Institute search for signs of extraterrestrial life.
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By piggybacking on VLA, which already has vast search capabilities, COSMIC is significantly expanding the search range for extraterrestrial life. Previous searches for extraterrestrial life have only covered a few thousand stars, but COSMIC will now be able to search for hundreds of thousands or even millions of star systems at frequencies between 0.75GHz and 50GHz. The search area is said to cover 80% of the entire sky.
COSMIC is taking advantage of the VLA Sky Survey (VLASS), which began its third observation in January 2023, and is analyzing a copy of the data observed by VLA in real time. Rapid analysis of weak radio waves will facilitate follow-up investigations to determine whether signals that may be technosignatures of extraterrestrial life are really from extraterrestrial life or some other source. About.
Chenoa Tremblay , an astronomer at the SETI Institute, said: 'The focus now is to create one of the largest surveys of technosignatures, with more than 500,000 sources observed in the first six months. ” commented. At the time of article creation, COSMIC seems to be scanning about 2000 cosmic radio wave sources every hour.
The figure below shows the locations of the star systems that COSMIC is observing as dots, and the areas where weak radio waves are mapped are filled in.
Since COSMIC only copies and analyzes VLA observation data, it does not interfere with other analyzes performed by VLA. Additionally, COSMIC's system is designed with future expansion in mind, so updates could potentially increase the number of objects that can be observed simultaneously and introduce machine learning algorithms to streamline data analysis. That's what he said.
The system's adaptability also means it can be used for astronomical projects beyond the search for extraterrestrial life. 'The flexibility of the design opens up a wide range of other scientific opportunities, including studying the pulse structure of
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