The Boomer Chronicles

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Weird Wednesday: The Search for Life on Other Planets Continues Posted: 06 Oct 2010 07:03 AM PDT Every day, astronomer Dr. Jill Tarter, 66, wakes up and goes to work attempting to find evidence of life on other planets. As director of the Center for SETI Research, she is the public manifestation of SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, which is now 50 years old. Yes, we have been systematically searching for life on other planets for 50 years, beginning with a scientist named Frank Drake. In 1960, Drake, then an astronomer at Cornell University, decided to mount a search for a signal being sent to us from another solar system, according to a story by journalist Clara Moskowitz. He pointed a radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, toward two nearby sun-like stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. He observed them for 150 hours over four months. Though the experiment did not succeed in discovering any of our cosmic neighbors, it began the search that is still going strong today. Drake and others at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., believe that one day the search will prove fruitful. If and when humanity does discover a signal from aliens, it will transform our society, Drake said. Now, watch an inspiring TED talk by Jill Tarter on the possibility of life on other planets.

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