From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Tue Jun 03 2008 - 09:00:20 PDT
An article on ATA from the Los Angeles Times:
An array at Hat Creek near Mt. Shasta points an ear to the
cosmos. If E.T. tries to phone on any of 10 billion channels,
Earth will be ready to listen.
By John Johnson Jr., Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 1, 2008
HAT CREEK, CALIF. — In this remote volcanic valley near Mt. Shasta, 42
telescope dishes have sprouted amid the soaring ponderosa pines, listening
for a voice from space.
Every few seconds the 20-foot-wide dishes, scattered over dozens of acres,
pirouette in perfect synchronicity, like dancers practicing their pas de
deux before opening night.
Rick Forster, a slight, 59-year-old astronomer with the long beard of a man
who has spent years in the solitude of the forest, said that after
fine-tuning the dishes over the next few weeks to function as a single,
giant ear, the real show will begin: listening for E.T.
The Hat Creek Radio Observatory will be the biggest radio telescope in the
world specifically designed to search for extraterrestrial intelligence when
the full 350-dish array is completed in the next few years.
“It’s nuts to think we’re alone,” said Forster. He works with the SETI
Institute and UC Berkeley, which are jointly installing the array.
“It’s just a matter of looking in the right direction, at the right time, at
the right frequency, with the right algorithm,” he said.
Full article here, plus some nice photographs with it:
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-seti1-2008jun01,0,2394909.story
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