The search for extraterrestrial intelligent life in outer space has shut down in the mountains of Northern California. There, a field of radio dishes operated by the SETI Institute has ceased operating because of state and federal government funding cuts

 

In operation since 2007, the Allen Telescope Array requires about $2.5 million a year to function properly, with most of its annual money coming through the University of California-Berkeley, which helped build the collection of radio dishes. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen provided $30 million to get the experiment started, but has not indicated if he will pay more to keep the 42 telescopes going.

 

The SETI Institute’s federal funding came primarily from NASA and the National Science Foundation. Now it is turning to the U.S. Air Force for a possible partnership.

 

SETI officials had planned to spend the next two years studying 1,235 possible planets, but instead will put their equipment in “hibernation.”

 

Without its own equipment to use, the SETI Institute plans to rely on the dish at Arecibo in Puerto Rico, the largest radio telescope in the world. But the institute is only given two weeks a year to point the enormous telescope at whatever it wants in the universe.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Shrinking Funds Pull Plug on Alien Search Devices (by Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press)

SETI Institute to Shut Down Alien-Seeking Radio Dishes (by Lisa Krieger, San Jose Mercury News)