The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

A lecture by Prof. Mike Garrett, The Sir Bernard Lovell Professor of Astrophysics, and Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics

Prof. Garrett will give an introduction to the Square Kilometre Array – a new radio telescope that is expected to be fully operational around the end of the next decade. The telescope will include a low-frequency component (located in Western Australia) and a mid-frequency component (located in South Africa). The Headquarters of the SKA is located at Jodrell Bank, next to the iconic 76-m Lovell Telescope. The SKA (and its various pathfinders e.g. MeerKAT) represents a major new capability that will have a major impact across a broad range of different astrophysical topics. He will present the various possibilities with a focus on his own major research interest, SETI. In particular, he will present some recent work on conducting SETI surveys with distributed interferometer arrays such as the SKA.

Prof. Mike Garrett is the inaugural Sir Bernard Lovell chair of Astrophysics at the University of Manchester and the Director of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (JBCA). JBCA is a group of 190 people, including post-graduate students based at two sites; the Alan Turing Building at University of Manchester, and the Jodrell Bank Observatory (JBO). Prof. Garrett's scientific interests are very broad but include the study of the distant universe via high resolution radio observations. He is also active in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and is currently vice-chair of the IAAs SETI Permanent Committee, as well as a visiting Professor at the University of Leiden.