By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
South Korea has some of the best telecommunication technology in the world. If only eavesdropping on alien chatter was as easy as flipping open a cell phone.
The Gwacheon National Science Museum said its brand new 7.2-meter telescope, to be activated this month, will be used to search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Local astronomers are analyzing radio signals detected by the telescope, which is now under a test run, according to Lee Kang-hwan, who will head the museum’s SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) program.
The telescope’s targets will include the Milky Way and about 250 planetary systems, Lee said.
``Our radio telescope is one of the first instruments of its kind specializing in finding indications of alien life,’’ Lee said.
``There’ve been consistent efforts in several countries to search for radio signals produced by extra-terrestrial life, but no substantial results have been reported. Science needs more research in this area, and we are glad to be part of the process,’’ he said.
Attempting to discover whether aliens exist has been one of the most perplexing challenges of modern science. Scientists, believing that radios offer the best chance at communication, have been using radio telescopes around the world to listen for signals broadcast by other species.
The process is a difficult one, as alien signals would likely be weak. If every radio signal detected from space in the span of a year were converted to electricity, the energy generated would only be enough to light a single Christmas tree bulb for a second.
As such, giant radio telescopes are needed to detect far distant radio waves. The world’s biggest is the 305-meter diameter telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
The largest radio telescope currently used in Korea is at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) in Daejeon and measures 14 meters.
That is about to change, however, as the country completed the Korean VLBI Network (KVN) in November, based on an electronic link-up of three 21-meter radio telescopes, established at Yonsei University, Ulsan University and Tamna University.
VLBI, short for Very Long Baseline Interferometry, is a system that allows the simultaneous observation of objects or radio sources by many telescopes combined, emulating a telescope equal in size to their maximum separation. The KVN, at a cost of 38 billion won (about $28.7 million), creates the equivalent of a 500-kilometer diameter telescope.
Although having their own VLBI system will surely help astronomers advanced their research, KASI states its state-of-the-art technology will be used for astronomical observations and studying the beginnings of the universe, not for the search for intelligent extra terrestrial life.
Thus, for Korean SETI advocates, the 7.2-meter dish in Gwacheon is the best option.
Currently, the world’s most ambitious SETI project is SETI@home, by the University of California, Berkeley, which relies on five million volunteers using their computers to scan data received from the Aercibo telescope and seven other giant telescopes around the world.
However, the project has yet to report a radio signal from extra-terrestrials.