Closing in on ET - Book Report/Review Example

The SETI today is a direct descendent of Ozma and has grown to encompass more researchers and equipment in the search for alien life. Despite the efforts being made to locate other intelligent beings, SETI is only capable of so much, as their radio telescopes are only able to catch brief glimpses into a space that is much too large to cover thoroughly. However, due to a rapid increase in quicker technology, it is believed that the finding of an intelligent species is only a few decades away. The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is SETI’s response to increasing their power behind searching for intelligent life and will speed up the search for alien signals.

Even though ATA is far from being complete, the current forty-two radio antennas that it consists of is still considered to be one of the most powerful facilities for alien radio searches. The Allen Telescope Array was named after technology entrepreneur Paul Allen, who provided the funding to get the project started. In comparison to other dishes, ATA has many advantages, such as more antennas to make detailed observations and maps of the sky, and being able to do so without having to wait for Earth to rotate.

A second advantage is that the smaller antennas has a wider field view than any other previous radio telescope, which will allow for better surveying or discovering of objects that give off occasional radio bursts. Finally, ATA is cheaper to build due to its size; many smaller antennas, no matter how many, are still cheaper than a few large dishes. ATA is already revealing other benefits. In previous years, SETI would have to examine a single target star at a time. With the telescope array, numerous target stars can be looked at during any given time.

Even though only two target stars can be looked at right now, it is encouraging to know that this number will change in the future. Due to this advantage, SETI is preparing for a project that will involve targeting a strip of sky that will allow a view of billions of stars in the view of the telescope. Another experiment will be to search in the anti-solar direction, hoping to catch signals from extraterrestrials that have seen Earth transit across the Sun. An alternative method to radio telescopes when looking for aliens is by looking for flashes of lights from nearby stars, a method known as optical SETI.

It is believed that since SETI aims high-powered lasers at the sky, aliens could be doing the same thing. These brief bursts have the ability to outshine the Sun a thousandfold when viewed from interstellar distances. Optical SETI is undergone by using small conventional telescopes that are capable of registering short bursts of light. Unfortunately, given the costs of these detectors, only one star can be monitored at a time. However, inexpensive detectors are on the rise, which would make it possible to target numerous target stars at once.

There are other methods to detecting intelligent life in our universe. Detecting high-energy neutrinos, which is said to imply a conscious attempt at signaling, is one of the methods being implemented. IceCube, a neutrino detector, resides under the Antarctic ice, does not exist to look for intelligent life, but it does have the capability. Massive optical telescopes are also being developed and improved upon and it is believed that these telescopes could find evidence for alien astroengineering, which are structures that have been built by alien