SETI searches for alien life in over 1,000 galaxies using unexplored radio frequencies

The sky looks dark with red glowing streaks. On the ground, there are a bunch of gray structures that together make up the MWA.

A search of more than 1,300 galaxies for extraterrestrial signals has helped to constrain expectations as to how many communicating, technological civilizations may exist beyond Earth.

Conducted with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Australia, the search concerned itself with low radio frequencies in the 80–300 MHz range. For comparison, SETI (which stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) typically looks for alien signals in the 1,420 MHz hydrogen emission frequency. In fact, low frequencies are relatively unexplored real estate for SETI.