3.9 Intellectual The Intellectual
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Introduction
Sofia Sheikh of the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the few postdoctoral researchers dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial civilizations and a rising scholar. In this article, she discusses topics with freelance writer David Appell on topics including mysterious space signals, picking tricky research areas, and the importance of mentors.
Written by | David Appell
Translate | Ma Chao
Proofreading | Wang Yiwei
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Figure 1 Soofia Sheikh's research focused on finding | extraterrestrial advanced civilization source: SETI
In 2019, when a mysterious radio signal from the direction of the nearest neighbor star was received by Earth, the Breakthrough Listen project commissioned Sofia Sheikh to investigate the source of the signal. Is this signal coming from an alien civilization on a habitable zone planet 4.2 light-years away from Proxima Centauri? Or is it a radio signal from the Earth or the myriad of possible sources around the Earth?
Sheikh is now a first-year postdoctoral researcher. When she was tasked, she was a member of the Center for the Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations (SETI) at the University of California, Berkeley. She coordinated a team to carefully analyze the collected data and search for similar signal patterns. Meanwhile, other members of the project collect as much public information about satellite transmissions and spacecraft as they can, and they even study an Australian plane with a similar radio frequency to this mysterious signal that lasted up to 5 hours. The signal, known as BLC1 (Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1), was detected by the 64-metre-aperture Parks Radio Telescope in New South Wales, Australia.
Sheikh, 26, received her bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley in 2017. At that time, she was responsible for designing the Search for the Earth Transit Zone in the Breakthrough Listening Project. The Earth's Transit Zone is a special space zone in which aliens from the distant universe happen to be able to observe the Earth passing in front of the Sun. That is to say, the various radio signals sent by us humans can be easily received by alien civilizations within the space zone, and from the perspective of advanced alien civilizations, since the earth has sent such a civilization signal, it means that the earth has advanced civilizations in the past or is now, so advanced alien civilizations may also be more inclined to send signals to earth. The work has been published in the 2020 Astrophysical Journal, with Sheikh as the first author.
When she first entered graduate school at Pennsylvania State University, Sheikh considered shifting her research direction from the previous research on advanced civilization signals to a more publicly accepted exoplanet search. She believes the two areas of research are closely related, but the latter can get more funding. But after talking to her future mentor, Jason Wright, an astronomer who is one of seti's leaders, she recalls how much she loved the field in the first place. "Even though the research task could be tricky, I still wanted to continue," she recalls. Later she got a Ph.D. in that direction.
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The tenth Ph.D. from the SETI project
Figure 2 Aliens contact us by sending a signal?
In 2019, astronomers were thrilled with mysterious radio signals from Proxima Centauri ( the closest star to us ) . But it was eventually confirmed that it came from Earth's electronic devices.
After earning her PhD in 2021, Sheikh is the tenth person to complete a doctoral dissertation from the SETI project, said her supervisor Wright. Last September, Sheikh was awarded a postdoctoral research grant (MPS-Ascend, Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending). In January, she returned to SETI to collaborate on research with legendary astronomers Jill Tarter and Andrew Siemion, director of the Seti Research Center at Berkeley and project leader of the Breakthrough Listening Project. The $100 million privately funded project was launched in 2015 by Russian billionaires Julia and Yuri Milner.
"Sofia's extraordinary passion and scientific excellence in exploring the unknown have greatly benefited her future career," Says Siemion, "and Sheikh is a world-class scientist who has devoted her vision, tenacity and energy to a challenging and significant area of research." Tarter agrees, saying, "When working on a project that spans generations, you really need to think hard about how to develop the next generation. Sofia's mpS-Ascend grant is a great opportunity for us to encourage and inspire the next generation of astronomers, and to think horizontally about how to scale up this commercial observation program, what needs to be done, who will do it, and where to start."
The BLC1 signal was first discovered by Shane Smith, who was an undergraduate at Hillsdale College in Michigan, USA, when he was sifting through more than four million radio signals from the Parks Radio Telescope. The map of this strange signal was quickly sent to the research team's internal communication platform, and with the help of initial screening tests, it was quickly ruled out that it came from a conventional radio source. The team then began looking for other sources of interference. Sheikh recalls: "When I saw the map of BLC1, I paused for a moment, thinking that this might be the signal of an alien civilization we were looking for."
To date, Sheikh and her team have analyzed more than 160 terabytes of observational data in search of mysterious signals like the previous BLC1. During the analysis process, the team needs to constantly learn a lot of new things, and needs to write a lot of Python code to quickly and efficiently quantify the characteristics of various signals. The COVID-19 pandemic has created additional obstacles to an already challenging research process. "It's a pleasure to focus and dig into something with detective thinking," Sheikh told Physics World. She said the whole team worked very hard and even on Christmas Day 2020 they were still in meetings.
Eventually, Sheikh and colleagues have found about 60 signals with BLC1-like properties, but they are all still present after the telescope moved away from Proxima Centauri.
"So we can confidently say that these signals are the result of human technological activity," she told SciTech Daily last October. Their frequencies are very regular, so they are likely to come from human electronic devices. "BLC1 is special because it happens to be in the direction of Proxima Centauri, which misleads us," she explains. Nevertheless, in order to be able to analyze these signals quickly and efficiently, we have developed a large number of code tools. By continuously improving the precision of the algorithm, we are always looking forward to the arrival of the next tantalizing signal, she added.
On December 18, 2020, the British Guardian reported the story of BLC1, and soon the news spread around the world. A screenshot of a YouTube video involving the work contained Sheikh's email address, so she quickly received comments from the public. But not all of them were well-intentioned, she recalled. She remembers some personally offensive emails, just because she was a polytechnic, or because she had a Pakistani surname.
Fortunately, In Sheikh's personal experience as a female scientist, "it's not a problem for the most part," except for the occasional slight offense, such as the advice "You give up." Co-mentors Wright and Siemion have helped her a lot in this regard, she said.
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Star Trek and the "incredible" idea
Sheikh grew up in South Carolina to a parent who was a gastroenterologist and a mother who was a housewife and stained glass artist. Sheikh has been a science fiction fan since childhood and has watched Star Trek novels many times with her father. Sheikh is also interested in The Incredible Physics, written by physicist and popular science writer Michio Karai.
Although Sheikh's above qualities are not unique to SETI researchers or astronomers, her passion for science fiction has been able to constantly push herself and try new strategies to find extraterrestrial intelligent life. One way is to look for clark belts (made up of a large number of geostationary satellites) orbiting exoplanets. Another way is to detect gravitational waves generated by the acceleration of alien spacecraft in our galaxy.
Sheikh's new work at seti research also includes the development of a mentorship program with the primary mission of providing science and programming guidance to sophomores at community colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area. She also plans to use the redesignated Allen Telescope Array in Northern California to develop research projects to help students understand the radio spectrum interference environment. At the same time, she also equips students with skills and researches other astronomical and physical topics.
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Rising academic stars
Today, Sheikh is becoming more and more well-known in her field, where she has presented at international academic conferences and published important findings in prestigious journals, such as in November 2021, when she published important findings on signal BLC1 in the journal Nature Astronomy as the first author. Sheikh has also been invited to work on other major projects, such as the Project to Measure Signals of Civilization in Earth's Atmosphere, led by Adam Frank of the University of Rochester in New York. The project will build a library of civilizational signals (generated by human scientific and technological activities) to detect the sensitivity of our current state-of-the-art detection instruments to such radio signals.
So, what made Sheikh successful at such a young age? Her mentors Jason Wright and Andrew Siemion played an important role in this. Sheikh also encourages young people to seize the opportunity to "seize the opportunity of each speech to promote their research work at international academic conferences". Young students who want to venture into cutting-edge science must build their network by attending conferences, seminars and group meetings. "Take the opportunity to show yourself." It's equally important to be involved in as many research projects as possible within your reach, she said.
Sheikh remains neutral about whether she can find extraterrestrial life in her career, and does not expect a giant alien spacecraft to appear over London or Johannesburg.
"But we've mastered this technology [of detecting extraterrestrial life], which is exciting enough," she said. Now, she is also working on other unconventional means of detecting possible extraterrestrial intelligent life.
Figure 3 The research work on the alien antenna Sofia Sheikh needed to use the Allen Radio Telescope Array on the Hart Creek Plateau in California, which is still the only radio telescope with the search for alien civilizations as its primary mission.
This article is the 53rd article in the Physics World column.
Copyright Notice
Originally titled "The technosignature researcher on the lookout for exo-civilizations", it was first published in February 2022 in Physics World and translated by the British Physical Society Press with the permission of The Intellectual. Unauthorized translation is an infringement and the copyright owner reserves the right to pursue legal liability. Log in to Physics World for daily global science news, hot stories and commentary. Physics World helps researchers in academia and industry stay at the forefront of the world's major scientific breakthroughs and interdisciplinary research.
Original link:
https://physicsworld.com/a/meet-the-technosignature-researcher-on-the-lookout-for-exo-civilizations/
Resources:
1. Sheikh, Sofia Z., et al. "The breakthrough listen search for intelligent life: a 3.95–8.00 GHz search for radio technosignatures in the restricted earth transit zone." The Astronomical Journal 160.1 (2020): 29.2. https://scitechdaily.com/a-mysterious-signal-looked-like-a-sign-of-alien-technology-heres-what-the-investigation-revealed/3. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/18/scientists-looking-for-aliens-investigate-radio-beam-from-nearby-star4. Sheikh, Sofia Z., et al. "Analysis of the Breakthrough Listen signal of interest blc1 with a technosignature verification framework." Nature Astronomy 5.11 (2021): 1153-1162.
Plate editor| Ginger Duck