Steve Croft describes how machine learning enables Breakthrough Listen to search through archives and real-time data streams – including those from the Vera Rubin Observatory – in the hunt for technosignatures.
Breakthrough Listen, the largest technosignature research program, traces that betray alien technology, observes the sky over the entire electromagnetic spectrum: images, spectra, time series, catalogues and alerts. In a synthesis article, astronomer Steve Croft explains how artificial intelligence changes the scale of this quest.
Conventional methods remain essential, but recent AI developments allow for the application of more powerful algorithms to huge data volumes. The program is no longer limited to campaigns specifically designed to search for artificial signals: it can now screen entire archives and generalist real-time observation flows.
Rubin and radiotelescopes
The author details the use of machine learning on radiotelescopes throughout the world and on the data of the brand new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which photographes the entire Southern sky continuously. His conclusion is optimistic: the chances of detection have never been better.
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