The ATA’s primary science goal is to search for radio technosignatures, trying to better understand the prevalence of technologically-capable life in the galaxy and the universe. We search for technosignatures from known planetary systems, from places and times of particular interest (such as the ecliptic, the region of the sky where the Earth would be seen to block the Sun’s light once a year), and from targets that we follow-up from other studies that claim interesting astrobiological results. 

Technical

The ATA is a world-class telescope because of its clever technical design. A field with 42 radio dishes may not look like a telescope, but the ATA can be used to study the sky in much the same way as a traditional visible-light telescope where you can look through an eyepiece.

One reason that the ATA is so valuable for science is its “large number of small dishes” design. These dishes are small compared to other facilities—“only” 20 feet across— but they are mighty when they work together! When combined by the computers in the signal processing room, the dishes provide as many pixels on the sky as a dish that is 1000 feet across! 

Another reason that the ATA is such a powerhouse is its custom wide-bandwidth feeds: the part of the telescope that actually receives the radio waves. The feeds are located at the focus point of the dish, collecting all of the radio waves that are reflected down to a single point. The ATA’s original Welch Feeds were a groundbreaking log-periodic pyramid design, which were eventually trimmed down and streamlined into the current Antonio Feeds. These feeds are special because they can capture radio waves over a huge range of frequencies at once, speeding up our search for potential alien signals. The feeds are very sensitive to very faint signals—even one feed alone could detect a cellphone if it was transmitting from the Moon! We are continuing our tradition of pioneering engineering at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory by working on a completely new feed design, the Quad-Ridge Feed Horn, which will amplify the existing benefits of the Antonio Feeds.

To support such a sophisticated and complex telescope, we need the world’s most sophisticated and complex computers. We use the most cutting-edge GPUs and other compute hardware to capture the immense amounts of data coming out of the telescope: our data-taking computers record the equivalent of 6 4k movies of data every second!