Bridging Technosignatures, Astrobiology, and the SKA

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Code of Conduct & AoC

HomeCode of Conduct & AoC

The SOC and LOC wish to acknowledge the Whadjuk Nyoongar people as the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters where the Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre (PCEC) is situated today, on the Derbal Yiragan. We also acknowledge the Wajarri people as the Traditional Owners of the land that the Square Kilometre Array Observatory is located, Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara. We pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

To create a safe and inclusive environment, all conference participants must follow the Astronomical Society of Australia Code of Conduct, which has been reproduced below.

Astronomical Society of Australia Code of Conduct

The ASA Code of Conduct outlines the Society’s expectations for behaviour and conduct. The Code
applies to all participants at ASA endorsed meetings or activities, and to ASA members at all
astronomical meetings or activities. It is the policy of the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) that all participants in its activities are able to enjoy an environment that is free from discrimination and harassment, and that its members conduct themselves appropriately during all professional activities. The ASA standard of appropriate professional conduct is defined by the Astronomical Society of Australia Statement of Ethics. The ASA is committed to making ASA-organised, -sponsored or -supported meetings, events and publications inclusive, productive and enjoyable for everyone, regardless of age, caring responsibilities, cultural diversity, disability, gender, indigeneity, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical appearance, or religion. The ASA will not tolerate harassment in any form from its members, from attendees of ASA activities, or as part of ASA publications.

All participants are expected to abide by these guidelines:

  • Behave professionally. Harassment and sexist, racist, ableist or otherwise exclusionary comments or jokes are not appropriate. Harassment includes, but is not limited to, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, sexual attention or innuendo, deliberate intimidation, stalking, and photography or recording of an individual without consent. It also includes offensive written or verbal comments related to issues including age, caring responsibilities, cultural diversity, disability, gender, indigeneity, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical appearance, or religion.
  • All verbal and written communication should be inclusive and appropriate for a diverse
  • professional audience.
  • Be considerate and respectful to others. Do not insult or denigrate other attendees. Critique ideas rather than individuals.

Individuals engaging in behaviour prohibited by the Code of Conduct as well as those making allegations of harassment in bad faith will be subject to disciplinary action as outlined in the document Handling of Potential Breaches of the ASA Statement of Ethics and Code of Conduct, up to and including termination of membership.

Anyone who wishes to report a violation of this policy is asked to speak confidentially to the meeting organiser, ASA President, or ASA Ethics and Conduct Committee Chair. Formal complaints to the Society can be made via the complaints form for confidential consideration by the ASA Ethics and Conduct Committee.

High Precision Astrometry: Not Just for Exoplanets - Recovering Properties of Host Stars and the Impacts on their Harboured planet(s)

Conaire Deagan (he/him), UNSW

Significant interest in the SETI community revolves around the Alpha Centauri star system due to its proximity and similarities to our solar system. One upcoming mission - the TOLIMAN space telescope - is designed with innovative optics to achieve high-precision astrometry to detect the presence of an Earth-twin around either Alpha Cen A or B. This level of precision - better than 1 micro arc-second - has opened new opportunities in stellar physics. This presentation demonstrates the feasibility of using TOLIMAN or other long-term, high-precision astrometric missions to monitor stellar activity. By detecting magnetic surface features, such as star-spots, we can infer properties of the host stars. These properties include relative inclination, magnitude and frequency of star-spots, differential rotation curves, and potentially the presence (or absence) of a Sun-like dynamo. These insights will provide information regarding the stellar environment and habitability of any exoplanets present. Understanding the host star in detail is crucial, as things such as the stellar wind, the frequency and intensity of stellar flares, and the topology of the stellar magnetosphere directly impact the sustainability of biospheres in the surrounding environment.

COSMIC: All-sky techno-signature search with a commensal instrument

Chenoa Tremblay (She/Her), SETI Institute

The search for intelligence outside our solar system is 60 years old and we have recently moved the search from 1000 objects in a 5-year observational program to over 1 million objects per year. This is made possible thanks to the new Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster or COSMIC backend system on the VLA. The COSMIC compute cluster receives a copy of the VLA data streams after digitization and we are utilizing an ethernet-based system to record, channelize, correlate, and beamform the data. The initial goal of the system is to process data simultaneously along with the VLA all-sky survey (VLASS) to complete the largest, most sensitive, search for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). COSMIC is designed to ingest the data at any observing frequency and search with time resolutions between 0.1 to 5 seconds and frequency resolutions between 0.2 and 10 Hz for signals of unknown origin. Any potentially interesting signals will trigger small chunks of voltage data to be dumped onto the disk for further investigation. In this talk, we will discuss the history of SETI and why this system is important, system design, flexibility, initial goals, and the potential for other guest science projects proposed by the astronomy community.