SPACE — NASA and Breakthrough Initiatives will collaborate to search for intelligent alien life, according to an October 23 press release from Breakthrough Initiatives.<br /><br />NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will cooperate with Breakthrough Listen's facilities around the world.<br /><br />TESS, launched as a successor to the spaceprobe Kepler in 2018, carries four wide view cameras and advanced instruments capable of detecting small, rocky planets similar to Earth that could support life.<br /><br />Listen's primary facilities, including the Green Bank and Parkes Telescopes and MeerKAT, will take part in the collaboration that is expected to furnish meaningful data and refine analysis strategy.<br /><br />Advanced alien civilizations could engage in large scale engineering projects by building megastructures that interfere with stellar light, according to Breakthrough Initiatives. <br /><br />TESS could detect these variations in stellar light, known as lightcurves, allowing researchers to analyse abnormal or interesting changes in stellar brightness.<br /><br />Advanced alien civilizations could also emit signals known as technosignatures via transmitters, propulsion systems and other technological apparatus.<br /><br />TESS increases the probability of detecting technosignatures by only observing planets that pass their host stars as seen from Earth, or along their orbital planes where transmissions are most likely.
