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New Europe-Wide Radio Telescope To Look For ET

Posted by samzenpus on from the phone-011-then-home dept.

astroengine writes "A new radio telescope is under construction, consisting of 44 stations (each consisting of several antennae) spread across Europe. The pan-European Low Frequency Array is half built and already returning unprecedented observations of cosmic radio sources. The best thing is, when it's complete, SETI will be able to use the array to seek out transmitting extraterrestrial civilizations in these untapped low radio frequencies."

5 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. First Post? by DarkKnightRadick · · Score: 4, Funny

    So we're looking for ETs who are also ham radio operators?

    --
    "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
    1. Re:First Post? by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've always found it interesting how we assume that aliens will follow time at the same rate we do.

      One might imagine that things like reaction time have to be relatively close to things like gravity, because otherwise species could be wiped out by falling rocks and such.

      In any event, I've always imagined that SETI might just be a waste of time, because civilizations might only use radio waves for a comparatively miniscule amount of time before they hit some technological singularity and find some other means of communication. Maybe I've been reading too much Vernor Vinge, who emphasises the swift and sudden disruption a singularity might bring in books like Marooned in Realtime , but there's got to be a pretty decent probability that any civilizations technologically advanced enough to talk to us have already surpassed us.

    2. Re:First Post? by kitsunewarlock · · Score: 4, Funny

      Or it could be that these primitive radio bands are part of the visible spectrum and we have been blinding their society for ages, causing any flying saucers that come close to the earth to crash on Jupiter...

      --
      Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
    3. Re:First Post? by keeboo · · Score: 3, Funny

      This is totally messed up. Why would they look for E.T. in Europe?

      If E.T.'s anywhere, it's in Hollywood, USA!

      I thought E.T. was in a landfill, in New Mexico.

  2. Science journalism[sic] by gzipped_tar · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read the scientific goals of LOFAR here: http://www.lofar.org/astronomy/key-science/lofar-key-science-projects

    And here: http://www.lofar.org/geophysics/scientific-rationale/scientific-rationale

    And even here: http://www.lofar.org/agriculture/fighting-phytophtora-using-micro-climate/fighting-phytophtora-using-micro-climate

    But "extraterrestrial intelligence" is surely teh attentionz grabb0r!!!1

    --
    Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.