Breakthrough

Listen is scanning

SETI’S
more of space than
ever to try to find
intelligent life
By Danny Price

MILLION-
STAR
SEARCH
IN 1960, ASTRONOMER FRANK DRAKE turned the radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory in Green Bank, W.Va., toward two nearby sunlike stars to search for transmissions from
intelligent extraterrestrial societies. With a pair of headphones, Drake listened to Tau Ceti and Epsilon
Eridani for a total of 150 hours across multiple sessions. He heard nothing, except for a single false
positive that turned out to be an airplane. • Statistically speaking, Drake’s pioneering project had lit­
tle chance of success. Estimates from both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) suggest that
our galaxy alone contains roughly 100 billion stars. (And there are perhaps 2 trillion galaxies in the
universe.) • Nevertheless, Drake’s effort, called Project Ozma, launched the modern search for extra­
terrestrial intelligence (SETI) efforts that continue to this day. But given the universe’s size, a SETI proj­
ect trying to make even the smallest dent in searching for intriguing signals needs to be much more
ENRICO SACCHETTI

than one astronomer with a pair of headphones. The project will need more telescopes, more data, and
more computational power to find such signals. Breakthrough Listen has all three.

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | FEB 2021 |  35
 Breakthrough Listen is the most comprehensive and expen-
sive SETI effort ever undertaken, costing US $100 million,
using 13 telescopes, and bringing together 50 researchers
from institutions around the globe, including me as part of
the Parkes telescope team. The project is making use of the
newest advances in radio astronomy to listen to more of the
electromagnetic spectrum; cutting-edge data processing to
analyze petabytes of data across billions of frequency chan-
nels; and artificial intelligence (AI) to detect, amid the uni-
verse’s cacophony, even one signal that might indicate an
extraterrestrial intelligence. And even if we don’t hear any-
thing by the time the project ends, we’ll still have a wealth of
data that will set the stage for future SETI efforts and astro-
nomical research.

Breakthrough Listen is a 10-year initiative,

launched in July 2015, and headquartered at
B the University of California, Berkeley. As my
colleague there, J. Emilio Enriquez, likes to
put it, Breakthrough Listen is the Apollo pro-
gram of SETI projects.
It was the first of several Breakthrough Initiatives founded
by investor Yuri Milner and his wife, Julia. The initiatives are
a group of programs investigating the origin, extent, and
nature of life in the universe. Aside from Listen, there’s also
Message, which is exploring whether and how to communi-
cate with extraterrestrial life; Starshot, which is designing a
tiny probe and a ground-based laser to propel it to the star
Alpha Centauri; and Watch, which is looking for Earth-like
planets around other stars. There are also projects in earlier
stages of development that will explore Venus and Saturn’s
moon Enceladus for signs of life.
Listen was started with three telescopes. Two are radio tele-
scopes: the 100-meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope,
in Green Bank, W.Va., and the 64-meter Parkes Observatory
telescope, in New South Wales, Australia, for which I’m the
project scientist. The third is an optical telescope: the Auto-
mated Planet Finder at Lick Observatory, in California. We’re
using these telescopes to survey millions of stars and galax-
ies for unexpected signals, and powerful data processors to
comb through the collected data at a very fine resolution.
In 2021, Listen will also begin using the MeerKAT array in
South Africa. MeerKAT, inaugurated in July 2018, is an array
of 64 parabolic dish antennas, each 13.5 meters in diameter.
MeerKAT is located deep in the Karoo Desert, in a federally
protected radio-quiet zone where other transmissions are
restricted. Even better, while at the other three telescopes
we have to share time with other research efforts, at MeerKAT
our Listen data recorders can “eavesdrop” on antenna data
24/7. Listen has also partnered over the last couple of years
with several other observatories around the globe.
The anomalous signals we’re searching for fall under a
broad umbrella called “technosignatures.” A technosigna-
include things like an abundance of artificial molecules in
the atmosphere. For example, Earth’s atmosphere has plenty
of hydrofluorocarbons because they were used as refriger-
ants before scientists realized they were damaging the ozone
layer. Breakthrough Listen isn’t searching for anything like
artificial molecules, but we are looking for both intentional
communications, like a “We’re here!” message, and unin-
tentional signals, like the ones produced over the years by
the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Arecibo, before cable breaks destroyed the dish in Novem-
ber 2020, was a telescope with four radio transmitters, the
most powerful of which effectively transmitted at 22 terawatts
at a frequency of 2,380 megahertz (similar to Wi-Fi). The tele-
scope used those transmitters to reflect signals off of objects
like asteroids to make measurements. However, an artificial
signal from Arecibo that made it into interstellar space would
be a clear indication of our existence, even though it wouldn’t
be an intentional communication. In fact, Arecibo’s signal
was so tightly focused and powerful that another Arecibo-­
like radio telescope could pick up that signal from halfway
across the galaxy.
Looking for technosignatures allows us to be much broader
ENRICO SACCHETTI

ture is any sort of indication that technology exists or existed in our search than limiting ourselves to detecting only inten-
somewhere beyond our solar system. That includes both tional communications. In contrast, Drake limited his search
intentional and unintentional radio signals, but it can also to a narrow range of frequencies around 1.42 gigahertz called

36  | FEB 2021 | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

the 21-centimeter line. He picked those frequencies because
1.42 GHz is the frequency at which atomic hydrogen gas, the
most abundant gas in the universe, spontaneously radiates
photons. Drake hypothesized that an intelligent society would
select this frequency for deliberate transmissions, as it would
be noticed by any astronomer mapping the galaxy’s hydrogen.
Drake’s reasoning was sound. But without a comprehen-
sive search across a wider chunk of the electromagnetic spec-
trum, it’s impossible to say whether there aren’t any signals
out there. An Arecibo-like 2,380-MHz signal, for example,
would have gone completely unnoticed by Project Ozma.
Ground-based radio telescopes can’t scan
the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Earth’s
G atmosphere blocks large swaths of bandwidth
at both high and low frequencies. For this
reason, gamma ray, X-ray, and ultraviolet
astronomy all require space-based telescopes. However,
there is a range of frequencies from roughly 10 MHz to 100 GHz
that can pass easily through Earth’s atmosphere and reach
ground-based telescopes called the terrestrial microwave
window. Breakthrough Listen is focused on these frequen-
cies because they’re probable carriers for technosignatures
from other planets with Earth-like atmospheres. But it’s still
a huge range of frequencies to cover: Drake searched a spec-
SUPERSIZE SETI: The 64 radio antennas of South
Africa’s MeerKAT array produce 2.2 terabits of data
per second. Combing through that amount of data
requires a complement of 128 servers and anomaly-
detection artificial intelligence. Without MeerKAT,
Breakthrough Listen wouldn’t be able to survey
millions of stars for potential extraterrestrial signals.
trum band of only about 100 hertz, or one-billionth of that
window. In contrast, Breakthrough Listen is covering the
entire range of frequencies from 1 GHz to 10 GHz.
Each radio telescope is unique, but they all function accord-
ing to the same basic principles. A large reflective dish gath-
ers radio signals and focuses them on the same point. At that
point, a receiver converts those radio signals into signals on
a coaxial cable, just like a well-aligned TV antenna. Then
computers digitize and process the signals.
The telescopes we’re using for Breakthrough Listen are
wideband telescopes, which means that they can record
signals from across a wide range of frequencies. Parkes, for
example, covers 3.3 GHz of spectrum, while Green Bank
can detect signals across 10 GHz of spectrum. Wideband
telescopes allow us to avoid making difficult choices about
which frequencies we want to focus on.
However, expanding the search band also greatly increases
the amount of data collected. Fortunately, after the receiv-
ers at the telescopes have digitized the incoming signals, we
can turn to computers—rather than astronomers with head-
phones—for the data processing. Even so, the amount of
data we’re dealing with required substantial new hardware.
Each observatory has only enough memory to store Listen’s
raw data for about 24 hours before running out of room. For
example, the Parkes telescope generates 215 gigabits per sec-
SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | FEB 2021 |  37

ond of data, enough to fill up a laptop hard drive in a few
seconds. The MeerKAT array produces even more data, with
its 64 antennas producing an aggregate of 2.2 terabits per
second. That’s roughly the equivalent of downloading the
entirety of Wikipedia 10 times every second. To make such
quantities of data manageable, we have to compress that raw
data to about one-hundredth of its initial size in real time.
After compression, we split the frequency-band data into
sub-bands, and then process the sub-bands in parallel. Indi-
vidual servers each process a single sub-band. Thus the num-
ber of servers at each telescope varies, depending on how
much data each one produces. Parkes, for example, has a
complement of 27 servers, and Green Bank needs 64, while
MeerKAT requires 128.
Each sub-band is further split into discrete frequency chan-
nels, each about 2 Hz wide. This resolution allows us to spot
any signals that span a very narrow range of frequencies.
We can also detect wider-frequency signals that are short in
duration by averaging the power of each channel over a few
seconds or minutes. Simultaneous spikes for those seconds
or minutes over a contiguous band of channels would indi-
cate a wide-frequency, short-duration signal. We’re focused
on these two types of signals because concentrating signal
power continuously into a single frequency or into short
pulses over a range of frequencies are the two most effective
ways to send a transmission over interstellar distances while
minimizing dissipation. Therefore, these signal types are the
most likely candidates for extraterrestrial technosignatures.
Fortunately for us, these kinds of signals are
the easiest to spot, too. Narrowband signals
F are easily distinguishable from ones caused
by natural astrophysical processes, because
such processes do not produce signals nar-
rower than a few thousand hertz. To understand why, let’s
look at the example of a cloud of hydrogen-gas molecules in
space emitting radiation in the 21-cm line. When Drake
searched that band, how would he have known the differ-
ence between an intentional signal from the noise created
by hydrogen gas?
Here’s how: Even though all the hydrogen gas in a cloud
radiates at that frequency, each molecule is moving in a differ-
ent, random direction. This movement causes each emitted
photon to arrive at a radio telescope with a slightly different
38  | FEB 2021 | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
MEET THE GANG:
Breakthrough Listen
started with two radio
telescopes, Green Bank
[left] in West Virginia and
Parkes [center] in New
South Wales, Australia,
as well as an optical
telescope, the Automated
Planet Finder in California.
frequency. It’s the Doppler effect at work: An emitted photon
will have a higher frequency if the hydrogen molecule was
moving toward you and a lower frequency if the molecule
was moving away. In the end, the hydrogen cloud’s signal is
smeared across a frequency band centered around 1.42 GHz.
If Drake had heard a narrowband signal at that frequency, it
would have meant he had detected a physical ­impossibility:
a hydrogen cloud in which every molecule was stationary
relative to Earth. Alternatively, the signal was artificial.
We can make a similar assumption about short-duration
signals. While there are some natural short-duration sig-
nals, namely fast radio bursts and pulsars, these have other
characteristics that single them out. A signal emitted by a
pulsar, for example, has a long “tail” caused by the lower
frequencies lagging behind higher frequencies over inter-
stellar distances.
Also, I should mention that artificial signals generally don’t
turn out to be extraterrestrial. In 2019, we published a paper
in the Astronomical Journal, detailing our search across 1,327
nearby stars. While we detected tens of millions of narrow-
band signals, we were able to attribute all of them to sat-
ellites, aircraft, and other terrestrial sources. To date, our
FROM LEFT: ANDREW CABALLERO REYNOLDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; LAURIE HATCH
most promising signal is one at 982 MHz collected in April
2019 from the nearby star Proxima Centauri. The signal is
too narrow for any known natural phenomenon and isn’t in
a commonly used terrestrial band. That said, there remains
a lot of double-checking before we rule out all possibilities
other than an extraterrestrial technosignature of some kind.
It’s also entirely possible that an alien society might give
off radio technosignatures that are neither narrowband nor
short duration. We really don’t know what kinds of commu-
nications such a society might use, or what kinds of signals
it would give off as a by-product of its technologies. Regard-
less, it’s likely we couldn’t find such signals simply by finely
chopping up the telescope data and analyzing it. So we’re
also using AI to hunt for more complicated technosignatures.
Specifically, we’re using anomaly-detection AI, in order to
find signals that don’t look like anything else astronomers
have found. Anomaly detection is used in many fields to
find rare events. For example, if your bank has ever asked
you to confirm an expensive purchase like airline tickets,
odds are its system determined the transaction was unusual
and wanted to be sure your credit card information hadn’t
been stolen.
 SIGNAL
We’re training our AI to spot unexpected signals using a
method called unsupervised learning. The method involves
giving the AI tons of data like radio signals and asking it to fig-
ure out how to classify the data into different categories. In
other words, we might give the AI signals coming from qua-
sars, pulsars, supernovas, main-sequence stars like the sun,
SIGNIFIERS
and dozens of other astronomical sources. Crucially, we do A major challenge for any
not tell the AI what any of these sources are. That requires SETI project is to distinguish
the AI to figure out what kinds of characteristics make cer- natural, artificial, and potentially
tain signals similar to one another as it pores through the extraterrestrial signals from one
data, and then to lump like signals into groups. another. A signal’s frequency
Unsupervised learning causes an AI classifying radio sig- and shape can reveal a lot of
nals to create a category for pulsar signals, another category information about the source of
for supernova signals, a third for quasar signals, and so on, that particular signal.
without ever needing to know what a pulsar, supernova, or
quasar is. After the AI has created and populated its groups,
we then assign labels based on astronomical objects: ­quasars,
pulsars, and so on. What’s most important, though, is that Terrestrial signals show up
the AI creates a new category for signals that don’t fit neatly as vertical lines, because
the Earth is stationary in
into the categories it has already developed. In other words, the frame of reference for
it will automatically classify an anomalous signal in a cat- both telescope and signal
egory of its own. source.
1,900 MHz
This technique is how we hope to spot any technosigna-
tures that are more complicated than a straightforward
narrow­band or short-duration signal. That’s precisely why Diagonal lines indicate
we needed an AI that can spot anything that’s out of the ordi- deep-space signals.
Satellites and probes are
nary, without having any preconceived notions about what identified by comparing
an odd signal should look like. signals with known
frequencies and directions.
8.4 GHz
The Listen program is dramatically increas-
ing the number of stars searched through SETI
T projects, by listening in on thousands of nearby Some natural phenomena (like
fast radio bursts) appear as
sunlike stars over the program’s duration. curved lines because the high
We’re also surveying millions of more-distant and low frequencies in their
stars across the galactic plane at a lower sensitivity. And we’re emissions spread out while
crossing interstellar space.
even planning to observe nearby galaxies for any exception- 1,400 MHz
ally energetic signals that have crossed intergalactic space.
That last category is a bit of a long shot, but after all, the proj-
ect’s purpose is to listen more than ever before. A potential extraterrestrial
Breakthrough Listen is a hugely ambitious program and signal must not match any
known artificial or natural
the most comprehensive search for intelligent life beyond source, and it must be studied
Earth ever undertaken. Even so, odds are we won’t find a to ensure it is not a previously
single promising signal. Jill Tarter, the former director of the unknown natural phenomenon.
982 MHz
SETI Institute, has often likened the cumulative SETI efforts
so far to scooping a glass of water out of the ocean, seeing
there are no fish in the glass, and concluding no fish exist. By
the time Breakthrough Listen is finished, it will be more like
having examined a swimming pool’s worth of ocean water. emerges from nonliving matter, or how often life develops
But if no compelling candidate signals are found, we haven’t into an intelligent society, or how long intelligent societies
failed. We’ll still be able to place statistical constraints on how last. So while we may not find any of the signs we’re looking
common it is for intelligent life to evolve. We may also spot for, we can come closer to putting boundaries on how often
new natural phenomena that warrant more study. Then it’s these things occur. Even if the stars we search are silent, at
on to the next swimming pool. least we’ll have learned that we need to look farther afield
In the meantime, our data will help provide insights, at for any cosmic company. n
least, into some of the most profound questions in all of
science. We still know almost nothing about how often life POST YOUR COMMENTS AT spectrum.ieee.org/seti-feb2021

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | FEB 2021 |  39
 Lyin’
AIs
The opacity of artificial intelligence makes it
hard to tell when decision-making is biased

— BY M AT T H E W H U T S O N

40  | FEB 2021 | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG ILLUSTRATION BY Eric Frommelt