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Jill Tarter and the Allen Telescope Array

Posted by Hemos on from the looking-to-the-skies dept.

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."

13 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Whats with the measurements?? by ciroknight · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why would we want to catalog habitable places within 450 light years, when our current space exploration can't get past our moon!?

    Also, can anyone explain the difference between a parsec and a light year???? I know its something about the arcsecond of the something and the whatchamagigger but yeah, thats about that...

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  2. Looking at the tools... by WegianWarrior · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...a network of 350 radio antenna dishes. Called the Allen Telescope Array (or ATA), the network ties together 6.1 meter (~20 foot) diameter dishes for a total surface area as large as eight football fields.

    I thought that the baseline of a telescope array was more important than the collecting area - or is that just when you work in the visible wavelenghts? Can anyone set me straight on that?

    --
    Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
  3. In some ways, the catalog is a waste of time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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 usefulness of looking for Earthlike worlds to find life is marginal at best: it is based on generalizations from a sample set of one. Yes, just one.

    I would guess that if we ever find "life" out there, it is going to be like nothing we expected in a place we never expected it. But that is just my guess, as after all we have no idea.

  4. Han Solo's great achievement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    In Star Wars, Han Solo made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs. It must be a measurement of time.

    Just as the micron is really something many kilimeters in length, according to Battlestar Galactica.

    1. Re:Han Solo's great achievement by bdmarti · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I won't claim that there is hard science or good dialog behind the star wars films, but in the case of Han Solo and the Kessel run comment I would say his comment can be forgiven. Since the "kessel run" goes past a series of black holes, the closer you are to the black holes, the faster you'd need to go in order to avoid certain death. If you take a shorter path as Han suggests he did, you also must be going faster.

      Here's to the willing suspension of disbelief in the name of entertainment.

  5. Not the inspiration for Contact... by DShard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    is what she said in an interview in discover magazine. I can't remember which month but it was some time recently. She said she had asked Carl about this and he said the inspiration was himself.

    1. Re:Not the inspiration for Contact... by .@. · · Score: 2, Interesting

      She wasn't the insrpiration for the movie itself, no. That was Carl Sagan and his book of the same name. However, there are several characters in the movie that bear much more than a passing resemblance to folks who actually work at the SETI Institute.

      --
      .@.
  6. Cool article, cool web page by Omega1045 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I am a huge SETI fan, I immediately noticed the menu system at the top of the Astrobiology Magazine website. It gives the user of the site the ability to email the story, fax it, download it in Word, Acrobat or PalmDoc, or make it printer friendly. Among other options, it also will translate to Spanish, and read the article to you in MP3.

    A lot of work, I think kudos should be given to the web dev team that put this site together. Very cool site!

    --

    Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein

  7. Why do it? by PineHall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I find the fascination with Extra-Terrestrials quite interesting. Is there some need for us to seek for someone outside of ourselves? Has the search for God been replaced by the search for ET? Are we looking for a God replacement?

    The reason I bring this up is that there is a very remote chance that an ET signal will ever be found and an even more remote chance that we will be able to communicate with them (impossible in the foreseeable future). So why spend money when the odds are so very low? What is this fascination?

    1. Re:Why do it? by sigep_ohio · · Score: 3, Interesting

      why do billions of people around the world believe in God? and give lots of money to their churchs/mosques/sinagogs(sp?)? belief in something greater than themselves. it is a need that lots of people seem to have. no one wants to think that we are alone. so if not god, then ET is who you look for.

      it all boils down to thinking that humans are special, and why are we special. if you are in the God camp, then most likely you think humans are unique in all the universe. the ET camp says we are not unique, but that we have brothers in space on distant worlds.

      as for the remote chance, well it is a remote chance that you will win the lottery, but people still play. a remote chance that you will get SARS, but people are still up in a panic. for many the odds don't matter, it is the possibilities that do.

      --
      Beer Die is the game of champions Learning To walk my own path.
    2. Re:Why do it? by mysticgoat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I find the fascination with Extra-Terrestrials quite interesting. Is there some need for us to seek for someone outside of ourselves? Has the search for God been replaced by the search for ET? Are we looking for a God replacement?

      I can only answer for myself, of course:

      1. Not a need in my case, but a desire that is stronger than the urge to purchase lottery tickets. See below.
      2. No, I continue to seek the gods as well as having an interest in seeking ET sentience. Obtaining a positive answer for one would probably have an impact on how I do the other, but at this point I do not see them as related endeavors. Certainly not as mutually exclusive pursuits.
      3. No, I wouldn't regard any other form of carbon/water based life as being a god substitute. Nor do I regard SETI's activities to be some kind of replacement for spiritual explorations.

      The reason I bring this up is that there is a very remote chance that an ET signal will ever be found and an even more remote chance that we will be able to communicate with them (impossible in the foreseeable future). So why spend money when the odds are so very low? What is this fascination?

      Agreed: the chances of SETI's success are very small. And the chance of finding that signal would be even more remote if nobody looks for it.

      As you suggest, the meat of the issue is a budgetary problem. If SETI is successful, reception of that first message would have as much impact on science, art, and religion as the Copernican revolution. It would be like winning the lottery, but bigger. So how cheap does the lottery ticket need to be before it makes sense to buy one every month? I think SETI is cheap enough to budget for.

      But SETI is unlike the lottery in one important way: if signals are not found in a reasonable length of time, that will tell me something useful. For instance, if the NASA Manned Mars Mission Proposal includes US$1 billion to develop a death ray to deal with inimical aliens, I would use SETI's negative findings to argue against such a pork barrel.

  8. Re:All this effort is going on the wrong planet by kindbud · · Score: 2, Interesting

    aren't there a lot more equally fascinating yet infinitely more practical aspects of space exploration to spend tons of money on?

    Yes there are, and we spend lots of money on those, too. What is your point? Are you merely unhappy with the way money is being apportioned among the various interests? Then why don't yopu study to become a space scientist so you can have some influence?

    --
    Edith Keeler Must Die
  9. Re:All this effort is going on the wrong planet by .@. · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not if, in that advanced society, the majority of people believed the way you do. They'd just kick back and wait for us to find them.

    Only, we'd be expecting the same of them.

    Besides, I'd much rather see "tons of money" (which is privately donated, by the by) spent on this than the way we recently spent seventy-five billion (let that rattle around in your head a bit: Seventy. Five. BILLION.) dollars in the Middle East.

    --
    .@.