"(BBC 1 June 2012) - The hunt for other intelligent civilisations has a new technique in its arsenal, but its first use has turned up no signs of alien broadcasts.Australian astronomers used "very long baseline interferometry" to examine Gliese 581, a star known to host planets in its "habitable zone".The hunt for aliens is fundamentally a vast numbers game, so the team's result should come as no surprise.Their report, posted online, will be published in the Astronomical Journal.In recent years, interest in such targeted searches has begun to surge as the hunt for planets outside the Solar System continues to find them at every turn.Astronomers currently estimate that every star in the night sky hosts, on average, 1.6 planets - implying that there are billions of planets out there yet to be confirmed..." |
