Nov 29 1975
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(New page: Radio astronomers in both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had intensified their search for possible civilizations out in space, Walter Sullivan wrote in the New York Times. Little publicity had been...)
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Radio astronomers in both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had intensified their search for possible civilizations out in space, Walter Sullivan wrote in the New York Times. Little publicity had been given the search to prevent raising public expectation for "what is likely to be a prolonged effort." Costs were minimal, because the observations had made use of equipment also used for other research. Dr. Hans Mark, Director of Ames Research Center, had told students at the Polytechnic Inst. of N.Y. that the search for other civilizations would become "one of the major scientific enterprises," and cited his belief that "communicative civilizations" had been a natural consequence of biological evolution. Dr. Mark pointed out that the U.S. giant antenna at Goldstone, Calif., used for spacecraft communications, could pick up emissions only from the vicinity of the nearest stars. One American search is using the largest antenna on earth-the dish at Arecibo, P.R.-to scan the five nearest galaxies at 1420 mhz, the frequency of radio waves given off by hydrogen atoms, long considered a logical frequency for civilizations trying to make contact. The Arecibo search had been conducted by two Cornell professors, Dr. Frank B. Drake and Dr. Carl Sagan. Another American search had been using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, W. Va., to scan 700 stars (resembling earth's sun) within 80 light years of the solar system for signals at the 1420-mhz wavelength. No obvious signals had been detected, but the recordings had not been subjected to detailed analysis, according to Dr. Patrick Palmer of the Univ. of Chicago and Dr. Benjamin M. Zuckerman of the Univ. of Md. The Soviet program, scanning the entire portion of the celestial sphere visible from the Soviet Union, had been using two networks with a total of eight stations spread across the vast width of the Soviet Union. The November issue of Icarus, international journal of solar system studies, had carried a prospectus of the Soviet CETI (communication with extraterrestrial intelligence) program divided into two phases. CETI 1; scheduled from 1975 to 1985, included the whole-sky scan by eight stations plus monitoring by two space stations and a survey of nearby galaxies, like the one under way at Arecibo. Only the eight-station project had been initiated, as far as U.S. scientists knew. CETI 2, from 1980 to 1990, had been scheduled to continue satellite monitoring but would also use semirotatable antennas such as the RATAN-600 antenna 600 m wide, known to be located high in the Caucasus; the system consisted of numerous plates that had to be aimed individually; calling for hand alignment since no computer had been designed, to perform this role. The Soviets also envisioned a monitoring station at the point beyond the moon where the gravitational fields of earth and moon would balance each other; a station at that point would be protected from the earth's own radio emissions. Identical fluctuations of signal recorded simultaneously at widely separated points would be considered to have extraterrestrial origin rather than to result from a local manmade effect. (NYT, 29 Nov 75, C13)
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