Official News page 4

REAL LIFE NEWS: SETI IS BACK

by Hazed

A few months ago I told you that the telescope array used to search for extra-terrestrial life had been switched off for lack of funds.

Great news - thanks to donations from fans, it's back!

Back in April, the SETI Institute had to switch off its "ears", putting the 32-antenna Allen Telescope Array in Northern California into hibernation due to loss of funding, in particular when the University of California at Berkeley stopped giving them money.

The institute set up a web-based campaign for donations after they were forced to stop the search, and it took just 45 days to raise $200,000. That's how much money SETI said would be needed to bring the antenna array back online.

Some of the contributors are famous names: Jodie Foster, who played a SETI researcher in the movie "Contact" and science fiction author Larry Niven have given money, as has Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders.

The SETI Institute is now drawing up plans to restart operations in September. Meanwhile, the fund-raising will continue because the money raised so far will only support operation for about five months.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/08/7309356-donations-revive-seti-quest

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