The Green Bank
Telescope in West Virginia and the Parkes Telescope in Australia are teaming up
for a 10-year $100 million search for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth.
Russian venture
capitalist Yuri Milner is putting up the $100 million.
Tony Beasley, director
of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which operates the Green Bank
Telescope, calls it “the most powerful, comprehensive and intensive scientific
search ever for signs of intelligent life in the Universe.”
Green Bank will
get $2 million per year for 10 years to devote 20% of its annual observing time
to searching a staggering number of stars and galaxies for signs of intelligent
life via radio signals, including one million closest stars to Earth.
If a
civilization based around one of the 1,000 nearest stars transmits to us with
the power of common aircraft radar, the GBT and the Parkes Telescope could
detect it.
The Green Bank
Telescope, nearly three football fields long, is the world's largest fully
steerable radio telescope. I’ve been to Green Bank several times because I find
the dozens of pieces of equipment searching the universe incessantly a
fascinating project.
It’s in the
National Radio Quiet Zone. You are unable to get any stations on your car radio
while driving in that area. It is about 5 miles from Cass, the scenic railroad town, and Virginia is a few miles to the east.
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