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Date: 2015-10-07; view: 589.

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NASA Listens for Space Aliens

Text 4.

According to Roy's nickname how could he look like?

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Have you ever looked up at the stars and wondered about life on other planets? Write a brief paragraph about what life outside the Earth might be like. Use the words below to write your paragraph. You can use the words in any order, but try to use every word.

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You're listening to the Top 40 Countdown on your boom box when a weird voice breaks in. ‘Attention Earthlings!' it says. ‘This is Bandor from the planet Pyron in the Constellation Zebo. We have received a transmission from you humans. You are not alone in the universe....'

ASA, the U.S. space agency, believes there's a good chance we're not alone in the universe. Last fall, NASA began a new project called the High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS). Its aim: to find evidence of life in one of the billions of galaxies in the universe.

The search for intelligent life on other planets isn't new. It began almost 100 years age. That's when scientists built a huge transmitter to beam radio waves into space. Scientists thought smart beings on other planets might pick up the signals.

Scientists also have beamed a message about humans and our solar system to a nearby constellation. But because the constellation is 25,000 light years away, a return message wouldn't reach Earth for 50,000 years! So don't wait up for an answer.

So far, no ETs (extraterrestrial beings) that we know of have returned our ‘calls.' But according to Dr. Jill Tarter, an HRMS scientist, we haven't exactly had our ears wide open. ‘Now, however,' says Dr. Tarter, ‘we've built the tools we need to listen well.'

Last October, Dr. Tarter switched on the largest radio receiver in the world. It's an enormous metal bowl stretching 1,000 feet across a canyon in the jungles of Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, another NASA scientist flipped on a huge radio antenna in California's Mojave Desert. NASA hopes these big dishes—and others around the world – will pick up radio signals from new worlds.

Dr. Frank Drake has been searching for life in outer space for years. He explains the HRMS project this way: To listen to your radio, you move the tuner on the dial until the channels
come in loud and clear. Now imagine radio receivers that scan our galaxy "listening" to 14 million channels every second. That's what NASA's radio telescopes in Puerto Rico and California are doing.

But that's not all. Powerful com­puters hooked to the telescopes sift through every signal. The computers try to match the signals to ones that scientists already recognize, such as human-made signals. If they can't, Drake and Tarter check on them. ‘It could prove there is radio technology elsewhere in the universe,' says Dr. Tarter. ‘And that would mean we're not alone.'

‘Whenever I look up at the stars,' Dr. Tarter adds, ‘it seems ridiculous to think we are alone.' After all, she reasons, there are billions of galaxies like our own. And in each of those galaxies are hundreds of billions of stars like our sun. Since each sun might also have planets, it's very likely that some of those planets sup­port life as Earth does. And, she believes, some of that life could be intelligent.

That leads right to the next big question: If there are smart ETs out there, are they trying to reach us? There's no way to know for sure. But according to Dr. Tarter, it might not matter. ‘If they have the technology, their signals may reach us by acci­dent, just as our TV signals may reach them.' Dr. Drake is also confi­dent. ‘I fully expect to find signals from an extraterrestrial before the year 2050,' he says.

Not all scientists are that certain of discovering life in other galaxies. But who knows? If Dr. Drake is cor­rect, the year 2050 just might bring us a group of new space neighbors!