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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."
Imagine our embarrassment when They finally arrive and want to be taken to our leader and we realize we have to let them meet George W. It's going to be Mars Attacks all over again...
Money for nothing, pix for free
How soon before we hear about suspicious noisy thumping sounds from a point in outer space, which turn out to be encoded plans for a strange device?
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hehehe... I just read it as "Alien Transport Array".
Damn... Too much coffee....
Is this proof that not everything that comes out of Microsoft is evil, or is it just a way to expand the market for Windows? :-)
If someone discovers that there are rebroadcasts of 40's baseball games with encoded secret plans,
will the DMCA sue the aliens for rights violations? Shut E.T. down, Napster-style?
one two three four five ?!! That's the combination on my luggage!
Am I the only one who read that as "Alien Telescope Array"?
I need more cafffeeeeeeennee...
http://kered.org
This can't be right. Jodi Foster looks nothing like Carl Sagan. ;-)
The guesses at inhabitable worlds sure fits in with assumptions of Trekkies. It assumes that other life on other planets would be humanlike and thus need a similar environment.
The only differences being that, while human like, the aliens have blue skin and green afros. Oh, and if we were to visit the surface of their world, the lowest-ranking member of the party would always be turned into a rock, or eaten by a giant alien squid, or killed in hand-to-hand combat with their greatest warrior.
"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.
It's going to take them forever using ATA, wouldn't SCSI be able to handle many more simultaneous searches?
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We need a department of the Search for Terrestrial Intelligence. ;(
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Called the Allen Telescope Array (or ATA),
We much prefer the Scientists Concerned with Space Intelligence (or SCSI) Array for serious work , even if it is a bit more expensive.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
He also said I wasn't the inspiration for "Scientist with Bad Haircut #3" but the resemblance (especially in Jill's case) must be more than coincidental.
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Has this array identified San Francisco as a potentially habitable host?
If it has then we are in trouble.
Cuiusvis hominis est errare; nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.
...at least we don't have to worry about them wanting to eat us!
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
[insert witty comment here]