After launching the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, " China Sky Eye " made important progress.
According to Science and Technology Daily Weibo news on June 14, Professor Zhang Tongjie, chief scientist of the China Extraterrestrial Civilization Search Group of the Astronomy Department of Beijing Normal University, revealed that his team used the "Chinese Sky Eye" to discover several cases. Possible traces of technology and candidate signals from extraterrestrial civilizations from beyond the Earth. Zhang Tongjie said that these are several narrow-band electromagnetic signals that are different from the past, and the team is currently working on further investigation. “The search for ‘China’s Sky Eye’ is long and we have been working hard.”
“China’s Sky Eye” panorama (drone photo). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Ou Dongqu
This time, the "China Sky Eye" discovered suspicious signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. Some netizens asked, are there really "aliens"?
"China's Sky Eye" continuously captured mysterious signals
Going back to a week ago, the 500-meter aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST), known as the "China's Sky Eye", "captured" the world's first continuously active repeating fast radio burst , named "FRB 20190520B", and was published in the international academic journal "Nature" on June 9, 2022, Beijing time.
Picture source: CCTV News
According to Li Gu, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, "What we found this time is the first continuously active fast radio burst, which means that every time we look at it, there is a signal, especially Loyal and reliable, and showing very peculiar characteristics, this short signal will occur repeatedly. There will be about 3 to 4 explosions per hour, and an explosion generally lasts a few thousandths of a second."
Picture source: CCTV News
Found this time , triggered a lot of heated discussion. On the one hand, this is another "only" new discovery of the "China Sky Eye", which is worthy of celebration; on the other hand, many netizens think of the bright astronomical "sparks" discovered this time. civilization.
6 June, according to Japanese media reports, The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced that more than 20 amino acids were found in the asteroid "Ryugu" sample collected by the probe "Hyabusa2". For the first time, it was directly confirmed that "the amino acid exists outside the earth." Since amino acids are the basic units of proteins, they are also an important clue to the origin of life on earth. This discovery is considered to be likely to prove that life originated outside the earth, and has also triggered widespread speculation about extraterrestrial life. (For details, see: The existence of the "source of life" outside the earth is confirmed for the first time! Hayabusa2 discovers key components of life in outer space)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's asteroid probe "Hyabusa2" is approaching its target asteroid "Dragon Palace". Image source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Starts search for extraterrestrial civilizations
As the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the world, the "China Sky Eye" also has high hopes for searching for extraterrestrial civilizations. This is also one of the five main scientific goals of the "China Sky Eye".
"China's Sky Eye" - the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) has been in a state of excellence since the "collapse" of the American Arecibo Telescope in 2020. It was officially put into use on January 11, 2020. Over the past two years, many space exploration achievements have been achieved, such as: the total number of 500 pulsars and has far exceeded that of the United States, and significant progress has been made in measuring interstellar magnetic fields with neutral hydrogen spectral lines. , revealed the complete energy spectrum and double-peak structure of fast radio bursts for the first time, carried out multi-band cooperative observations to open up new discoveries in pulsar exploration... and so on.
In 2018, the "China Sky Eye" installed and debugged back-end equipment specifically used for searching for extraterrestrial civilizations. Its main function is to filter out useful narrowband candidate signals from the vast electromagnetic signals of the "China Sky Eye" and combine celestial bodies and Artificial signals are eliminated.
In September 2020, the "China Sky Eye" officially launched the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. The search methods are mainly simultaneous sky survey observations and exoplanet target observations.
In 2020, Zhang Tongjie, chief scientist of the China Extraterrestrial Civilization Search Group of the Department of Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, revealed that during data processing of the 2019 synchronic sky survey observations of the "China Sky Eye", the team discovered two groups Suspicious signals from extraterrestrial civilization. In 2022, the team discovered a suspicious signal from the exoplanet target observation data.
The picture shows the SETI observation plan using FAST's 19-beam receiver to detect one trillion stars in the Andromeda Galaxy. In the picture on the left, the Andromeda constellation is divided into 21 hexagonal areas, and the picture on the right shows an enlarged detail of one of the hexagons. It can be seen that each hexagonal area is covered by four observations from the 19-beam receiver, each shown by four colors. (Source: Science and Technology Daily WeChat official account)
The discovery of more and more extraterrestrial planets, coupled with revolutionary advances in instruments and observation capabilities, has led to the resurgence of the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. In the future, FAST will surely become an extraterrestrial civilization. The workhorse of search research. Will
be the first to discover aliens?
In order to search for extraterrestrial civilizations, humans have tried various methods, such as launching unmanned spacecraft or electromagnetic wave signals from the earth into outer space, such as actively receiving signals from aliens.
Zhang Tongjie, chief scientist of the China Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations of the Cosmology and Extraterrestrial Civilization Research Group of the Department of Astronomy at Beijing Normal University, said that the "China Sky Eye" has three major advantages in searching for extraterrestrial civilizations: it has a larger observation area and is twice as high sensitivity and 19 beams that accept signals from different sky areas. The Arecibo radio telescope has been unable to detect credible signals before. It may be that it does not have the three major advantages of the "China Sky Eye". Of course, other unknown reasons cannot be ruled out. Now, with the Arecibo radio telescope completely withdrawing from the stage of history, the important task of searching for extraterrestrial civilizations falls on the "China Sky Eye".
At a press conference held by Chinese Academy of Sciences on June 7, looking back on the construction history of FAST over the past 20 years, Jiang Peng, executive deputy director and chief engineer of the National Astronomical Observatory’s FAST Operation and Development Center, was very pleased. He joked: "The hardships at that time made people confused about the future. If we had known that FAST could achieve so much, we might have worked harder!"
There are always too many mysteries waiting for humans to explore in the vast universe. Every new discovery is an improvement in sky survey and observation, and they are all aimed at seeing a bigger world and a farther universe!
(China Xiaokang Comprehensive Science and Technology Daily, Global Times , Jimu News, Daily Economic News , etc.)
