ET can’t phone home if he doesn’t exist. According to the White House, he doesn’t. After all, it’s not like the US Government would lie to us — would it?
Things got pretty hairy for alien civilisations hunters after the US government shut down SETI last April. But thanks to the donations of many people, the search is back on. One of those donors is the lovely Jodie Foster.
The astronomers, sceptics and believers who use SETI to scan the stars for extraterrestrial intelligences are retraining their sights on stars previously scanned by telescopes for signs of life 50 years ago. Second time’s the charm?
Paul Allen’s SETI array was powered up yesterday. Currently with 42 6-meter dishes in operation, the final product will have 350 antennas (antennae?) in total, capable in total of scanning over 1 million star systems in the hope of finding some kind of intelligent life out there. Since the Hat Creek, California telescope station is jointly run by SETI and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at UC Berkeley, it will be used to study other phenomena as well, such as black holes, supernovas (supernovae?) and “exotic astronomical objects.” (Insert yo mama’s butt, US defence expenditures or Google stock price joke here.) [BBC News; photo from Forefront]
