SETI Thursday: Cranking Up the Allen Telescope Array
Seth Shostak writes in Space.com:
In the patchwork of dry, cow-fouled ranch lands 250 miles northeast of San Francisco, an unusual crop is poking above the dusty shrubbery. Three dozen metal mushrooms have sprouted near the modest village of Hat Creek, and are turning their aluminum eyes skyward. These antennas, 20 feet in diameter and the height of a football goal post, are the vanguard of an eventual herd of 350 dishes, sprinkled over more than a half-mile of dirt and lava. They are the first installment of the Allen Telescope Array.
By spring, 42 of these antennas will be working, and while this is scarcely more than 10% of the ATA’s final tally, even this partial sub-array can do interesting science. Beginning a few months from now, it will.
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.
But the promise of future speed, and future sensitivity, makes a targeted search now—using only the sub-array—a less-than-exciting idea. It’s akin to riding a burro to California a year before they finished the transcontinental railroad. You might as well wait and get a better ride.
posted by Fergie @ 10/06/2005 05:50:00 AM
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