Slashdot Mirror
Allen Telescope Array In Action
DIY News writes "36 of an eventual herd of 350 dishes are now operational in a remote area 250 miles northeast of San Francisco. These antennas, 20 feet in diameter and the height of a football goal post, are the first installment of the Allen Telescope Array, and they are ideal for short SETI projects while the array is being built." From the articel: "The young ATA's first foray into SETI will be known by the straightforward (if not overly galvanic) name of Inner Galactic Plane Survey. The word 'survey' may surprise many who are familiar with this telescope's design. After all, it's being finely tuned to speedily examine large numbers of star systems in a so-called "targeted search". The completed array will be exceptionally nimble at such individual scrutiny, and will leave previous targeted searches in the data dust."
I wasn't aware the idea of SETI was to establish communications with other sentient life. I thought the whole point was simply to FIND them if they are there. We can work on what comes after that, AFTER THAT.
Unusual crops and alien life (SETI responders) would not stand out near SF. /sidenote: Damn, this CSS for /. SUCKS on IE! //sidenote
San Fransicso is very liberal. But, this is on the OTHER side of California's Central Valley, which is VERY conservative, consisting of lots of rice/wheat/nut farmers who are as republican as any.
(Sigh) If you think 250 miles from SF is "near" SF, you don't know your butt from a hole in the ground... or at least, you don't know California.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
SETI's search parameters are based on some really well though out assumptions about how ET civilizations might try communicating. In a technological society where eletromagnetic radition is reasonably well understood it shouldn't take too long to figure out that the radio portion of the EM spectrum is really useful, especially if their physiology remotely resembles anything on Earth. We can't naturally detect radio waves so we don't hear a buzzing sound when talking on cell phones and we can't see it so we're not blinded by an FM reparter on a hilltop. Radio travels quite far in all sorts of media and can be generated and detected with relatively simple electronics. Lower frequencies are also much easier to broadcast omnidirectionally so multiple receivers can pick up a signal simulteneously. Suffice to say that radio is something a technological civilization is probably going to make good use of. Because of radio's propogation characteristics it is possible to detect signals at extreme distances.
Because of this our solar system is surrounded by a bubble of radio chatter about a hundred light years in diameter, expanding a bit farther every year. A technological civilization within this bubble of radio noise is quite likely to see us. A thousand years from now a technological civilization within a two thousand light year bubble could potentially see us. Therefore it is assumed that we could see another civilization's radio noise. This is SETI's general search criteria, evidense of a technological civilization outside of our solar system.
Now if a technological civilization were deliberately trying to send us a message. Maybe not us specifically but anyone out in the galaxy who might be able to find such a signal. How might that civilization send out a signal? There's lots of different ways but there's a really good chance they would send it via radio. As mentioned, it has excellent propogation characteristics. Radio signals reach us from the edges of the visible universe, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to get a signal a few hundred or thousand lightyears. It is also something the universe is teeming with. There's radio sources all over the place yet also quite a few empty bands. A civilization that figures out how radio works and happens to point an antenna at the sky will find this out quickly.
Now it is possible advanced civilizations might communicate via some extremely high tech means. SETI's notion is twofold, we will be able to see random noise generated by a civilization or we'll get a deliberate signal from one. Under premise one we might see radio traffic of some super technological civilization, they might be broadcasting gravity wave signals but we might be able to see their radar. Under the second premise a civilization wanting to be seen by others would attempt to communicate in the most fundamental way possible. Radio waves are pretty fundamental. It takes a modest command of physics and electronics to detect them and understand what you're actually seeing.
So yes it has been considered.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
"philanthropist Paul G. Allen has committed $13.5 million to support the construction of the first and second phases of the Allen Telescope Array... This announcement follows the successful completion of a three-year research and development phase that was originally funded by an $11.5 million gift from the Allen Foundation."
It's private money (actually Microsoft money). $24 million might fund a "low budget" Hollywood movie or buy one Impressionist painting. The array will also be doing "ordinary" astronomy; "In addition to conducting a SETI survey of the inner galaxy, the ATA-32 will observe in the direction of the galactic anti-center to detect primordial deuterium, study dark matter in nearby dwarf galaxies, and generate maps of polyatomic molecules in molecular clouds."
Wouldn't it be farther along if they didn't build it on the most expensive real estate in the world? Maybe instead of spending 15 years building 10% of it outside Sacramento they could compromise and build it 1 mile east of Calif* for a trillion dollars less.
Mr Google tells me it's nearest Cassel CA, population 366, in the Mt. Lassen Area. That is a low priced area. The median home in Cassel in the 2000 Census data was valued at $130,000.