[FPSPACE] Anyone out there? DUT students detect alien source

[Keith Gottschalk]

As a fellow South African.,

   I await with bated breath any scrap of further news from Durban.
With my flu, my breath is not too long. Durban, a city of three million,
 is not a radio-quiet zone. Our biggest radio-telesscope to date is at
Hartebeeshoek ("Gnu corner") some 1K kms to the west. Our prototype SKA,
called Meerkat, is located in our Karoo semni-desert on the western side
of our country.

Keith

>>> William Keel <wkeel at bama.ua.edu> 08/18/08 7:32 PM >>>
> Hello One and All,
>               Has anyone else heard anything about this? Or is this 

> another false alarm?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Alex Michael Bonnici
>
> Anyone out there? DUT students detect alien source
>
>
> A DURBAN lecturer and his students have detected a radio source,  
> possibly from an alien source, from beyond the solar system with the 

> aid of their specially built radio telescope.
>
> Last week, the Indlebe Radio Telescope, situated on the Steve Biko  
> campus of the Durban University of Technology, successfully detected 

> its first radio source.
>
> The Indlebe Radio Telescope is a transit instrument that operates at 

> the Hydrogen Line frequency of 1420 MHZ and uses a very sensitive  
> radio receiver to detect extraterrestrial radio signals.
>
> Stuart MacPherson, project leader in Electronic Engineering at the  
> university, said he and his students were amazed when they realised 

> the telescope had picked up a signal.
>
> ?We had made significant changes to the receiver to increase its  
> sensitivity.
>
> ?When we went in that morning to check the data, we found that it  
> had detected a source,? he said.
>
> On whether there is alien life out there, MacPherson laughed and  
> said there is hope and a possibility that the radio signal could be 

> generated by an alien source.
>
> He said a strong electro-magnetic source was detected in Sagittarius 

> A, which lies in the centre of the Milky Way.
>
> ?It?s unbelievable. It?s definitely a great relief for us because  
> now we know that the radio telescope works. The students were  
> excited and shocked at the same time,? he said.
> MacPherson said there are plans to improve the telescope.
>
> ?It?s still early days, but we will move on to bigger things. We are 

> going to increase the sensitivity of the system. The radio telescope 

> will be used for years to come,? he added.
>
> He said that the detection of the source is a significant step for  
> the students, as all the hardware ? the antenna and feed horn, the  
> final analog and the digital converter providing a digital  
> representation of the detected source to a PC ? has been designed  
> and constructed on campus.
>
> ?It is intended that the received data will shortly be made  
> available in real time to interested persons who will be able to  
> graph the data using freely available software,? he said.
>
> MacPherson said that the Indlebe project was started in 2006 by the 

> Department of Electronic Engineering to attract high school pupils  
> to the department and to give undergraduate and postgraduate  
> students an opportunity to work on a real-world, complex electronic 

> system.
>
>
>
> http://www.witness.co.za/?showcontent&global[_id]=11385 
>
Everything in that description sounds like an instructor showing pride 

that the students have gotten to the point of constructing a telescope 

which can detect ordinary astronomical sources - nothing to indicate  
an unusual detection. Sgr A is a pretty strong source and goes almost 

overhead from South Africa, so it's a natural thing to test a transit 

telescope (one which can only see the part of the sky passing the  
meridian). Come to think of it, the only source I'm sure is stronger  
at most frequencies is the recent supernova Cas A which never rises  
(or just clears the horizon) from their site.

Bill Keel

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William C. Keel                                        205-348-1641  
(office)
Professor and Leadership Board Faculty Fellow
Physics and Astronomy                          205-348-5051 (fax)
Box 870324                                              205-348-5050  
(dept.)
University of Alabama                            
http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel 
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0324, U.S.A.    wkeel at bama.ua.edu 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




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