Jill Tarter and the Allen Telescope Array

An anonymous reader writes "Today's interview with Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute (and Carl Sagan's inspiration for the main character of his novel Contact), outlines the forthcoming search capabilities of the large Allen Telescope Array. Their thousand-fold expanded search must find promising places to point 350 radio dishes. Outside San Francisco, the array spans an equivalent 8 football fields. Their new catalog, called HabCat, identifies all potentially habitable hosts for complex life within 450 light-years from Earth. Of the billions of places to point in the sky, their A-list total: 17,129. Start at Vega."

Comments

Re:Whats with the measurements??

[Scaba]

I don't know where you live, but if that civilization is anything like ours (the US), the signal is the inanities of everyday life: either toothpaste commercials, warlords rallying the public (i.e., Hitler, Bush, et al.) or reruns of old "I Love Zgrxqklop" episodes. We hate knowledge and learning here in the States - and are in fact proud of our ignorance - so we ain't be broadcasting no encyclopedias anytime soon.

Re:Oh no!

[T.E.D.]

That's assuming they choose to land in the USA off course. Considering that the USA covers only a minor piece of the worlds landmass, it's statisticly more likely they will land somewhere else entirely.. like Red China or India. Not sure if it would be any better thought, politicans are generaly crocks no matter where they are from.

First off, the USA is not the largest country in area, but it is in the top 4. The only larger ones are Russia, China, and Canada. India is smaller. It should also be pointed out that Canada is contiguous with the US along a very long border, creating in effect one very large block.

Secondly, anyone smart enough to travel that distance despite the physics problems involved would probably also be smart enough to land in the place putting out the most energy (assuming they want to find "our leader"). That would be the US, hands down.

Just a simple look at artificial lighting at night would lead one to conclude that "leaders" would most likely be found on the NE corridor in the US, or in the Belium-Netherlands area in europe. Japan's an outside possibility. But Russia, China, and India are about the last places you'd go.