In April 2018, the US Congress for NASA voiced new challenges related to the continued search for technological signals from space. On September 26-28, representatives of the agency plan to hold a seminar on technologies and voice the most promising areas of research in the search for technological signals in order to attract private and charitable organizations to invest in this area. Information about this is posted on the official website of the agency.
From the very beginning of civilization, humanity has wondered if we are one in the universe. As NASA studied the solar system and beyond, the agency developed increasingly sophisticated tools to address this fundamental issue. So in the solar system, NASA's mission looked for signs of both past and present life, especially on Mars, and shortly thereafter on Jupiter's moon Europa. In addition, missions such as Kepler and TESS allowed the study of thousands of planets in the orbits of other stars.
Gaining knowledge about planets orbiting other stars, called exoplanets, as well as the results of a decade of research work in search of life, so-called biosignals, prompted NASA to seriously address the question of whether humanity is lonely in the universe. In addition to searching for evidence of microbial life, NASA scientists continue to search for intelligent creatures outside of planet Earth.
Receiving a signal of technological origin allowed scientists to make an unambiguous conclusion about the existence of another civilization in the Universe. The most common type of process signal is radio signals, but there are many others that have not been fully understood.
It is appropriate to use the term 'technosignatures' here, which has a broader meaning than historically used, since it is more suitable for the program for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence SETI. We are talking about such technological signals as radio or laser radiation – signs of massive structures or an atmosphere full of pollutants, that is, those that may imply intelligence.
As part of this program, researchers have already done a tremendous job of finding radio signals at low frequencies using radio telescopes. Indeed, humanity's own radio and television broadcasts have been drifting in outer space for a number of years. Scientists do not exclude that an alien civilization is currently making such noises.
NASA's SETI program ended in 1993 after Congress, acting on budget deficits, diminished political support for the program and canceled funding for the search for extraterrestrial life. Since then, NASA has focused its efforts on developing our fundamental understanding of life itself, its origin and the habitability of other bodies in our solar system and galaxy. But how if NASA manages to find a powerful investor in the program to search for signals from space, then it is possible for humanity to discover another civilization.
