Penn State center awarded NASA grant to search for alien civilizations

Penn State center awarded NASA grant to search for alien civilizations
by Sam Sholtis for Penn News
University Park PA (SPX) Jan 14, 2025

Researchers at the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence (PSETI) Center have been awarded a three-year, $480,000 grant under the NASA Exoplanets Research Program to search for radio and laser signals from alien civilizations. The project is led by Pinchen Fan, a doctoral student in astronomy, astrophysics and astrobiology, under the supervision of her adviser, Jason Wright, professor of astronomy and astrophysics and director of the PSETI Center.

"This NASA grant marks a significant milestone for both Penn State and the broader field of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)," Wright said. "This area of research has been historically underfunded by NASA but is now seeing a resurgence in attention and support. The PSETI Center is uniquely positioned to lead this exploration, thanks to Penn State's support, NASA's support and the dedication of researchers like Pinchen, who will be driving much of this project forward."

In 2018, Wright organized a workshop in Houston on behalf of NASA to inform the agency how it might better participate in the search for technological life elsewhere in the universe. The new grant represents a continuation of the momentum started with that workshop, as well as a signal that NASA is increasingly open to supporting innovative approaches to the search for life elsewhere in the universe, according to Wright.

"The renewed interest from NASA is a game-changer for SETI research," Fan said. "It provides us with the resources and support needed to push the boundaries of our understanding and explore uncharted territories in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence."

Technosignatures are defined as any detectable sign that would indicate the presence of intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the universe. This new project aims to develop novel laser and radio technosignature detection techniques that will push the boundaries of how researchers can detect technosignatures from planets outside the solar system.

"We will analyze the patterns of humanity's most powerful deep-space radio transmissions as a baseline for understanding the patterns of a civilization's transmissions to its own interplanetary probes," Fan said. "We will use these patterns as a guide to how we might eavesdrop on radio transmissions from other spacefaring civilizations that are not specifically intended for Earth."

Fan will also use the tens of thousands of infrared spectroscopic measurements taken by the Habitable Zone Planet Finder (HPF) built at Penn State to detect planets orbiting other stars to see if there are any communicative laser transmissions coming from them.

"Humanity has been moving towards laser communications for interplanetary communications for a while now," Fan said. "It makes sense that other species might do the same, so we are excited to use the HPF for this novel search."

The HPF is an astronomical spectrograph installed on the 10-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Observatory in Texas.

"There is a long tradition of SETI searches piggybacking on surveys at the radio wavelengths" said Suvrath Mahadevan, Verne M. Willaman Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the principal investigator of the HPF spectrometer. "It is great to see this approach now used in the near-infrared with HPF to search for laser transmissions."

This funding underscores Penn State's prominent role in a field that is gaining traction within the scientific community, Wright said. The 2018 workshop, along with a series of SETI Symposia hosted by the PSETI Center on Penn State's University Park campus, played a pivotal role in renewing NASA's focus on SETI research.

"NASA's support for our technosignature research reflects both the growing scientific credibility and public interest in SETI," Fan said. "I'm excited to contribute to Penn State's leadership in this field and to develop new techniques that could bring us closer to finding extraterrestrial life."

The PSETI Center was founded in 2020 to establish Penn State as an academic leader in technosignature research. Through initiatives like this NASA-funded project, the center provides a platform for researchers to explore sophisticated technosignature detection methods and more.

"This grant from NASA highlights a pivotal moment in the advancement of SETI as a scientific discipline and the pioneering work being done at Penn State," Wright said. "With renewed support, innovative ideas, and a team of dedicated researchers, Penn State is well positioned to lead in the quest to uncover evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth."

Members of the PSETI Center are also building an interdisciplinary academic SETI community, developing a SETI curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and training new SETI researchers.

"I'm eager to see where this journey takes us," Fan said. "Every step we take brings us closer to potentially answering the age-old question: 'Are we alone?'"