Tag: SETI

Turn the Machines Back On!


“‘We’re not completely out of the woods yet, but everybody’s smiling here,’ the institute’s chief executive officer, Tom Pierson, told me today.” Also in good space exploration news, SETI’s Allen Telescope Array is now back online thanks to a wave of private donations. “Among the contributors are Jodie Foster…science-fiction writer Larry Niven…and Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders…’It is absolutely irresponsible of the human race not to be searching for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence,’ Anders wrote in a note accompanying his contribution.“

Silence will Fall.


“‘There is a huge irony,’ said SETI Director Jill Tarter, ‘that a time when we discover so many planets to look at, we don’t have the operating funds to listen.’ SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak compared the project’s suspension to ‘the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria being put into dry dock.’…This is about exploration, and we want to keep the thing operational. It’s no good to have it sit idle.”

Another casualty of the lousy economy and the budget crises (in this case, California’s) SETI’s Allen Telescope Array goes dark. “‘We have the radio antennae up, but we can’t run them without operating funds,’ he added. ‘Honestly, if everybody contributed just 3 extra cents on their 1040 tax forms, we could find out if we have cosmic company.‘”

The Silence of the Empty Cantina.

“In April, the world will celebrate the quinquagenary of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, so it seems a good time to take stock of the silence. Three new books tackle the issue in three different ways. One, an immensely readable investigation of the SETI enterprise (with a surprising conclusion); the second, a technical guide to what we should be looking for and how; and the third, a left-field argument that the alien question has already been answered.“

In New Scientist, Michael Hanlon surveys three new books about the continuing search for alien life, and attempts to grapple with the Fermi paradox.”Today it is rare to meet an astronomer who doesn’t believe that the universe is teeming with life. There is a feeling in the air that light will soon be shed on some of science’s most fundamental questions: is Earth’s biosphere unique? Do other minds ponder the universe?“

SETI 2.0.

“‘We’ve looked at far, far fewer than 10 million stars since 1960, and so we really can’t say anything worthwhile yet about whether or not intelligent life is out there,’ Drake said. ‘Given our capabilities now, we might have something useful to say one way or another in 25 years.'”

In the wake of all these new planets, the WP takes a gander at the new and improved SETI program. “‘We’re finding new extra-solar planets every week,’ she said. ‘We now know microbes can live in extreme environments on Earth thought to be impossible for life not very long ago, and so many more things seem possible in terms of life beyond Earth.’”

Paging VGR.

After nearly four years of number-crunching (including 11,000 hours on my own personal PCs), Seti@Home has chosen 150 signals worth a second look, and will be using the Arecibo radio telescope thus next week. (Via Windowseat and Kestrel’s Nest.) Apparently, Seti@home will also be posting the names of the users whose computers picked out the 150 best signals, possibly on Friday.