The Planetary Society Planetary Society Turns Eyes to the Skies for ET
January 1999
THE FOLLOWING RELEASE WAS RECEIVED FROM THE PLANETARY SOCIETY, IN PASADENA, CALIFORNIA,
AND IS FORWARDED FOR YOUR INFORMATION. (FORWARDING DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT BY THE
AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY.)
Steve Maran, American Astronomical Society
For Release: January 19, 1999
Contact: Susan Lendroth (626) 793-5100
tps.sl@mars.planetary.org
Planetary Society Turns Eyes to the Skies for ET
After more than a decade of sponsoring SETI searches that listen, the Planetary Society
will now turn eyes to the skies to scan for possible light signals with three new optical
SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence) programs.
The optical SETI projects are divided between the east and west coasts of the U.S. -- two
at the University of California, Berkeley, and one at Harvard University and Smithsonian
Observatory in Massachusetts. The Harvard project is led by Physics Professor Paul
Horowitz; the University of California projects by Geoff Marcy and Dan Werthimer.
"We have been listening for alien signals for decades; it's time we started to
watch for signals as well," said Louis Friedman, Executive Director of the Planetary
Society. "These three new optical SETI projects bring the total number of
SETI projects sponsored by the Planetary Society to seven -- and brings our historic
funding total for SETI to more than $1,000,000."
Werthimer's optical SETI system looks for very short pulses of light from nearby stars
similar to the Sun, as well as from a few globular clusters and galaxies. Using
Berkeley's 30-inch (76-centimeter) automated telescope at Leuschner Observatory, the
project searches for light pulses that may last as short as one billionth of a second.
Marcy's project searches for steady, extremely narrowband or single-color light signals.
Marcy will use data from his extensive extrasolar planet searches, data from the
Lick and Keck observatories, as well as data from an Australian search.
Horowitz, with colleagues Jonathan Wolff, Chip Coldwell and Costas Papaliolios, has built
an improved system inspired by Werthimer's design. Their detector is attached to a 61-inch
(1.5-meter) optical telescope next to the Planetary Society-sponsored BETA radio
telescope in Harvard, Massachusetts. The optical telescope taps into the light being
studied by astronomers David Latham and Robert Stefanik, who are currently measuring the
speed of 2,500 nearby sun-like stars, and who are co-investigators in the optical
search. The experiment's photometer can detect pulses as short as a few billionths
of a second.
Searching for narrowband laser pulse SETI signals was first suggested by Nobel prize
winner Charles Townes of the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Townes is a
co-investigator with Marcy and Werthimer. Stuart Kingsley
of Columbus, Ohio performed early optical SETI observations. The current
projects, with their advanced detectors, were recommended in a study conducted by the SETI
Institute, which is also helping to sponsor the searches.
For more information about optical SETI or other SETI projects sponsored by the
Planetary Society, contact Susan Lendroth at (626)793-5100 or by e-mail at tps.sl@mars.planetary.org.
The Planetary Society's website is http://planetary.org.
Information on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence may be found there in a
special SETI section. The Harvard SETI project maintains a web page at http://mc.harvard.edu/hgroup.html,
with extensive information on their new optical SETI experiment. The Berkeley SETI
program web page is http://seti.ssl.berkeley.edu.
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