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China's SETI program will find alien life first, says Chinese astronomer

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https://thedebrief.org/chinas-seti-progr...stronomer/

EXCERPTS: . . . Zhang Tongjie, a professor of cosmology at the Beijing Normal University, believes that China may be the first to find an alien transmission. [...] FAST completed construction in 2016 ... It now stands as the largest radio telescope in the world, surpassing the recently collapsed Arecibo Observatory radio telescope this past year. [...It is...] planning on opening its doors to foreign scientists to use the telescope for their own research.

Before Zhang, no Chinese astronomer had ever attempted SETI research because of the stigma behind searching for “aliens,” so even though Zhang was given time to use the telescope for SETI research, it’s a strict time limit of 17.5 hours. [...] In China, Zhang was tirelessly lobbying Chinese authorities to access FAST for his own research. Only recently was he granted the ability to use the telescope through the National Astronomical Observatories’ association...

[...] The SETI community has focussed heavily on scanning for unnatural radio signals. The harsh reality is that they’ve yet to find anything substantially out of the ordinary that would indicate alien technology. Zhang will use this same method in China, but he hopes that with the power of the FAST telescope, they may have a better chance.

“Our telescope is able to identify and observe many solar systems that others can not,” Zhang said. “And many of them have the ingredients for emerging life. If it is out there, we will probably be the first to find it.”

[...] One of the most glaring challenges to Zhang’s work and its potential to discover a possible extraterrestrial message comes from the Chinese government. If FAST were to find a potential signal, how would the Chinese government react? Would they contain the information and not make it public to the global scientific community? Could China unilaterally act on the message and be the first and only contact with this potential civilization?

However, these concerns seem to grow more from paranoia over current political tensions between China and the United States. The working relationship between Zhang and Werthimer, and that FAST is available to the global astronomical community indicates that any discovery would probably be made public.

Zhang’s ambition may lead to China being the first to discover an extraterrestrial message, but the race is long. While the SETI Institute has been running in it longer, China may get to the finish line first. Regardless, we hope it will be a shared victory... (MORE - details)
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