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Last December news leaked that the Breakthrough Listen project, part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), had picked up an unexplained signal from the direction of Proxima Centauri. Although everyone involved stressed how unlikely it was that our first evidence for alien intelligence would come from the nearest star to our Sun, some dared to hope. Further research, however, has made Earth-based interference a near-certain explanation. There are many reasons to study Proxima Centauri besides the possibility of technological radio emissions. Australia’s giant Murriyang radio telescope was pointed towards the star primarily to study stellar flares, but in the...

Fast-moving debris from a supernova explosion triggered by a stellar collision crashes into gas thrown out earlier, and the shocks cause bright radio emission seen by the VLA. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF __________________________________________________________________________ Astronomers have found dramatic evidence that a black hole or neutron star spiraled its way into the core of a companion star and caused that companion to explode as a supernova. The astronomers were tipped off by data from the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS), a multi-year project using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). “Theorists had predicted that this could...

Are you ready for one of “the great scientific adventures of the coming decades”? Construction of the largest and most complex radio telescope network in the world officially began today in what is being described as a “historic moment for radio astronomy.” Designed to help astronomers answer some of astronomy’s most fundamental questions, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) was today given the go-ahead at its first council meeting at its headquarters at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire in the UK. Jodrell Bank is home to the Lovell Telescope, the world’s third-largest steerable radio telescope. SKA is going to cost $2.2 billion—and...

On Monday (Aug. 10), an auxiliary cable supporting a platform that is suspended above the 1,000-foot-wide (300 meters) radio dish broke and crashed into the telescope's reflector panels, creating a gash in the dish measuring about 100 feet (30 m) long. In a news conference with reporters Friday (Aug. 14), Arecibo director Francisco Cordova said that 250 of the observatory's primary reflector dish panels were damaged, along with several support cables underneath the dish. But observatory officials have not yet fully assessed the extent of the damage or determined the cost of the repairs needed to get the 56-year-old radio...

As America has turned away from searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, China has built the world’s largest radio dish for precisely that purpose. Last January, the Chinese Academy of Sciences invited Liu Cixin, China’s preeminent science-fiction writer, to visit its new state-of-the-art radio dish in the country’s southwest. Almost twice as wide as the dish at America’s Arecibo Observatory, in the Puerto Rican jungle, the new Chinese dish is the largest in the world, if not the universe. Though it is sensitive enough to detect spy satellites even when they’re not broadcasting, its main uses will be scientific, including an unusual...

While the facility has been closed all week for the hurricane, a handful of staff members had remained inside the observatory, waiting for the storm to pass. "Most cell towers and all landlines are down," Aya Collins, a spokeswoman for the National Science Foundation (NSF), told Space.com in an email. With no power, phones or internet, the people of Puerto Rico have very limited means of communication with the outside world. "We haven't received any official communications from the Arecibo Observatory," Collins said. ... USRA update noted that "one observatory staff member located in the town of Arecibo contacted via...

Scientists in the Netherlands unveiled the largest radiotelescope in the world on Saturday, saying it was capable of detecting faint signals from almost as far back as the Big Bang. The LOFAR (LOw Frequency ARray) consists of 25,000 small antennas measuring between 50 centimetres and two metres across, instead of a traditional large dish, said Femke Boekhorst of the Netherlands Radioastronomy Institute. It is based near the northeastern Dutch town of Assen, but the antennas are spread out across the rest of the Netherlands and also in Germany, Sweden, France and Britain. "Today we have launched the biggest radiotelescope in...

JAMES REYNOLDS SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT AMATEUR radio hams are usually excited by the faint buzz of a distant shortwave station, but a group of scientists believe they have received a message from extra-terrestrials. Astronomers think that a signal picked up by a radio telescope last year shows the highest probability yet that ET’s family may have returned his call. In February 2003, scientists involved in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) pointed the huge radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, at about 200 sections of the sky. Unexplained radio signals had been detected twice by the same telescope in these areas...

Astronomers have completed their most sensitive search yet for radio signals from intelligent life in space. They believe the best way to find ET is to look for a radio signal. Such signals can travel vast distances. The Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, supported by Jodrell Bank, searched over a period of 10 years. The scientists looked at 800 nearby stars with no evidence of a signal from ET. They say they have learned a lot, and plan another search next year. From the ashes The last star scrutinised by Project Phoenix - the most powerful search for intelligent...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 May 28 The Very Large Array of Radio Telescopes Credit: VLA, NRAO Explanation: The most photogenic array of radio telescopes in the world has also been one of the most productive. Each of the 27 radio telescopes in the Very Large Array (VLA) is the size of a house and can be moved on train tracks. The above pictured VLA, celebrating its twenty-second year of operation, is...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 March 11 The 100-Meter Green Bank Radio Telescope Credit: NRAO, NSF Explanation: The largest single-dish fully steerable radio telescope began operation in 2000 August in Green Bank, West Virginia, USA. Dedicated as the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, the device weighs over 30 times more than the Statue of Liberty, and yet can point anywhere in the sky more precisely than one thousandth of a degree....