AI Agents Now Steer SETI's Telescope and Caught a Pulsar

Astronomers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to run a radio telescope as part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project. Researchers at the SETI Institute, working with the Breakthrough Listen research program, built AI agents that can control the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a radio telescope array in Northern California. These AI agents can steer the telescope's antennas and process radio data in real time. For now, though, they still need a human in the loop. The system runs on Holoscan, a data-processing framework built by chipmaker Nvidia. It can handle up to 2.4 terabits of data per second. According to the researchers, the technology lets them do in hours what used to take weeks. For example, the team detected a pulsar in the Crab Nebula in real time for the first time ever. Pulsars are fast-spinning neutron stars that give off periodic bursts of radiation, which makes them a good test case for AI capabilities. The Crab Nebula is what's left over from a star that exploded.

The researchers hope to build a simplified, open source version of their AI system that could run on local devices for future sensors on the far side of the Moon. If that works, it would let AI agents operate beyond just one top-tier Nvidia-powered radio telescope. Whether these AI agents will ever actually find extraterrestrial intelligence is still an open question. No sign of alien life has turned up since the first SETI experiment back in 1960.