Most of the time, movies are inspired by reality. But there are times when life believes she is the copy, and movies are the reality. Astronomers are the most exposed branch to do that, especially when it comes to alien life.
Aliens are somehow similar to gods, for some people. Humankind invented them, believing there is something out there more powerful than us, that holds the reins of truth and wisdom, and possibly created us. Scientology is a religion, and some of us believe that aliens created us. But we are not allowed to judge. Humans need faith.
We seek contact with aliens
The Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico has a new and ambitious project. And people expect a lot from it — to prove that we are not alone in the Universe. That we are not a singular event, more like an anomaly in the Universe, but that there are others like us — or different, it doesn’t matter as long as we have the proof that an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization exists.
Disobedient to Stephen Hawking’s warning against attempting any form of contact with the aliens, the privately-funded Seti Institute and the VLA are collaborating to meet them. Hawking’s suggestion that the outcome for humans would not necessarily be good is not enough for Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley Seti Center. He wants to say ‘Hello!’
The new project to search for alien life
Using 28 giant radio telescopes, scientists are going to hunt for aliens. This area of research has “gone mainstream.” A supercomputer will search for beeps, squawks, or other signatures of a distant technology. The cables are already installed with funds from John Giannandrea, a senior Apple executive and trustee of the Seti Institute, and Carol Giannandrea.
A new observatory is needed — Panoseti. It will continuously watch the sky with its two enormous lenses required for the landscape view of space. It is expected to spot transient signals, such as the flash of a distant, powerful laser. Funding is still waiting to be complete, so Panoseti can bring proof that alien life is out there and not here.
