How did Breakthrough Listen search for signals from nearby stars and galaxies?

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artist's conception of Kepler-186f — extraterrestrial intelligence An artist's conception depicts Kepler-186f, the first Earth-sized extrasolar planet found in its star's habitable zone.

The Breakthrough Listen project, which began in 2016, conducts a 10-year survey to search for signals from extraterrestrial intelligence. The project targets the one million closest stars, the nearest 100 galaxies, the galactic centre, and the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy.1

To perform these observations, the project utilizes the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia and the 100-metre telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. Breakthrough Listen also distributes some of its collected data to the public through the SETI@home initiative, allowing volunteers to use their personal computers to process data and search for potential signals.1

These searches typically focus on the microwave band near 1,420 megahertz, hunting for narrowband signals that would be distinct from natural broadband radio emissions.1