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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Breakthrough Listen [wikipedia.org] has massively expanded its survey of stars [breakthroughinitiatives.org] using the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia:

Breakthrough Listen – the initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe – announced today that a survey of millions of stars located in the plane of our Galaxy, using the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope ("Parkes") in New South Wales, Australia, has commenced. Listen observations at Parkes began in November 2016^{1 [breakthroughinitiatives.org]}, targeting a sample consisting mostly of stars within a few light years of Earth. Now, observations have expanded to cover a huge swath of the Milky Way visible from the site.

The expanded survey is made possible by new capabilities installed at Parkes by Breakthrough Listen: new digital instrumentation capable of recording the huge data rates from the Parkes "multibeam" receiver. The previous receivers used by Listen only observed a single point on the sky at a time, and were used to perform a detailed search of stars near to the Sun for evidence of extraterrestrial technology. In contrast, the multibeam receiver has 13 beams, enabling a fast survey of large areas of the sky, covering all of the Galactic Plane visible from the site.

Even if Breakthrough Listen doesn't find aliens, it is throwing a lot of well-deserved cash at astronomers and upgrading the capabilities of their telescopes.

Also at Space.com [space.com] and USA Today [usatoday.com].

Breakthrough Listen: Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100 Million "Breakthrough Listen" SETI Project [soylentnews.org]
"Breakthrough Listen" to Search for Alien Radio Transmissions Near Tabby's Star [soylentnews.org]
Breakthrough Listen to Observe Interstellar Asteroid 'Oumuamua for Radio Emissions [soylentnews.org]

CSIRO Parkes: Famous Australian 'Dish' Radio Telescope to be Emptied in Budget Crisis: CSIRO [soylentnews.org]
Milky Way Obscures Hundreds of Previously Undiscovered Galaxies [soylentnews.org]
New Fast Radio Burst Discovery Finds 'Missing Matter' in the Universe [soylentnews.org]

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