 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dedicated SETI Optical Telescope Starts Work
Harvard MA (SPX) Apr 17, 2006 The Planetary Society dedicated its new optical telescope Tuesday in a new dedicated effort to search for light signals from alien civilizations. Its 72-inch primary mirror is the largest of any optical telescope in the United States east of the Mississippi River. The telescope will conduct a year-round, all-sky survey, scanning the entire swath of the Milky Way that is visible in the northern hemisphere. "This new search apparatus performs one trillion measurements per second and expands by 100,000-fold the sky coverage of our previous optical search," said Paul Horowitz of Harvard University, the facility's director. The telescope was built at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Oak Ridge Observatory, where for many years, The Planetary Society conducted radiotelescope SETI searches with Horowitz. The first was the Mega-channel Extraterrestrial Assay search, or META, which later was expanded to the Billion-channel Extraterrestrial Assay, or BETA. Scientists specializing in alien civilizations think they might be at least as likely to use visible light signals for communicating as they are would be to use radio transmissions. Visible light can form tight and incredibly intense beams, and its high frequencies allow it to carry enormous amounts of information. Using only extant technology, an Earth-based laser to send a tightly focused light beam that for a brief instant could be 10,000 times brighter than the Sun. Such a beam could be easily observed from enormous distances with the right instrument. "The opening of this telescope represents one of those rare moments in a field of scientific endeavor when a great leap forward is enabled," said Bruce Betts, the society's director of projects. "Sending laser signals across the cosmos would be a very logical way for E.T. to reach out, but until now, we have been ill equipped to receive any such signal." The telescope's custom image processors will handle the equivalent of all books in print every second. As the telescope scans stripes of sky, it employs a custom-built camera containing an array of detectors that can detect a billionth-of-a-second flash of light. The telescope will scan the sky every night, weather permitting. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Optical SETI Radio SETI SETI Life Beyond Earth Lands Beyond Beyond - extra solar planets - news and science
Deconstructing Life Does Not Metabolise Into Creationism
Boston MA (SPX) Mar 14, 2006How does chemistry become biology? Solving this question is important for research into life's origins, and also for the search for life elsewhere in the universe. In this interview, Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, describes a new comprehensive study that will try to figure out how chemical systems cross over into the world of the living. |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
