Paul Allen continues search for aliens
Aug 9, 2011, 6:51 AM | Updated: Oct 10, 2012, 7:28 am
The Allen Telescope Array northeast of San Francisco is back online. (Image courtesy the Allen Telescope Array)
(Image courtesy the Allen Telescope Array)
Microsoft mogul Paul Allen is again searching for aliens.
The Allen Telescope Array northeast of San Francisco is back online.
The array of several dozen radio telescopes is designed to search for alien life, among other things. ATA was the “first panchromatic, wide-angle, snapshot, radio camera ever built.”
“It is the first major telescope in the world built specifically for undertaking a search for extraterrestrial intelligence,” astronomer Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. said in a news release.
The project was shut down in April due to funding problems, but the SETI Institute was able to reach its short-term fundraising goal to get it up and running again.
SETI still needs $2.5 million annually to stay operational.
Allen donated more than $30 million to get much of the array built in 2007.
