New and Improved SETI

nomrniceguy writes "The new year is sure to be memorable for SETI, as glossy new instruments come on-line. At Harvard University, a survey telescope designed to sweep massive swaths of the sky in a hunt for extraterrestrial laser flashes is becoming a reality. In Puerto Rico, the famed Arecibo telescope is getting a new feed that will speed up searches by seven times. And in California, the SETI Institute and Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Lab will soon be scanning the star-clotted realms of the inner Milky Way with the first-stage implementation of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) and will eventually boast 350 antennas, each 20 feet in diameter. This impressive antenna farm will be spread over about a half square-mile of terrain."

Comments

350 Antennas

[Tackhead]

> "... 350 antennas, each 20 feet in diameter. This impressive antenna farm will be spread over about a half square-mile of terrain."

~fitzprrklpop~ople of Earth, can you hear us now?~fwopzzwwep~

'Extraterrestrial laser flashes'?

[Anonymous Coward]

So do they expect to be able to see space battles between Klingons and Romulans or something?

Re:'Extraterrestrial laser flashes'?

[Linker3000]

Vader (increasing death grip on pilots neck from a distance of several metres): SO! master pilot, tell me why the new Death Star - the pride of the Empire - was damaged by a collision with a small moon while establishing a parking orbit at Omega-4?

Pilot: Sir (cough, splutter), it's not my fault - we were completing our orbital parking procedure as per instructions when this a**hole from Sol-3 shone this frickin' blinding laser beam into the cockpit and we missed the last orbital beacon.

New and improved

[Tablizer]

Now we can detect new and improved aliens, not those scrappy ones who crash saucers in New Mexico, poke people in the ass for kicks, and gobble up Beagle Mars probes.