ET - Don't Phone Now

About 300 miles north of San Francisco, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute have been running a series of radio telescopes that are aimed at the sky and used to monitor space for any extraterrestrial signals it may find. The Allen Telescope Array project has been largely funded in the past by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who has donated in excess of $25 million to the project. This project was originated in 1997, and came to be a reality four years later when Allen funded the first 42 antennas. Plans were made to expand that to a total of 350 antenna dishes in the future.

Each of the twenty foot wide telescopes is aimed into a different areas of the sky, and they simply collect, not transmit, data round the clock that is processed by advanced computers that scan for unusual patterns. Many other similar telescope monitors only scan the sky for limited periods at a time, but these do so continually.

However, due to a budget reduction, the project has lost much of its funding and has led to the project being shut down at least temporarily. The project is a joint effort between SETI and the University of California-Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Lab. Tom Pierson, the CEO of SETI, said, "Starting this week, the equipment is unavailable for normal observations and is being maintained in a safe state by a significantly reduced staff."

Karen Randall is the director of special projects at SETI, and she has stated that although the Allen Telescope Array has been put into hibernation, the project is set to resume operation in 2013 when new funding becomes available, and that funding should cover the project until 2018. Aside from this set of scopes, SETI also has access to the monitor the heavens through the telescopes in West Virginia, Puerto Rico, and Australia. The Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope are likewise available for use. But all of those sources must be shared with others, and therefore competition to use them is greater and does not allow for full-time use.

Jeff McCormack resides in Virginia Beach, VA. where he works as a web designer by day. In his off time he is a husband, father, mail order book store manager, and musician. Aside from being a freelance writer for this Tech Careers blog, he also seeks to assist in career choices and information by contributing to other Nexxt blog sites.