Astonomers Begin Search For Alien Life On 86 Earth-Like Planets

Astronomers from United States have begun searching for alien life on 86 possible earth like planets. A massive radio telescope that listens for signs of alien life is being used for this project. These 86 planets are short-listed from 1235 possible planets detected by NASA's Kepler telescope. We have picked out the planets with nice temperatures — between zero and 100 degrees Celsius — because they are a lot more likely to harbor life. The mission is part of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project, launched in the mid 1980s. A giant dish pointing towards each of the 86 planets will gather 24 hours of data, starting from this week. A total of 42 telescope dishes, known as Allen Telescope Array (ATA) cost 50 million dollar. The surface of the telescope is 100 by 110 meters and it can record nearly one gigabyte of data per second. The project will likely to take about a year to complete and will be helped by a team of one million at-home astronomers, known as SETI@home users, who will help process the data on personal computers. SETI has recently announced shuttering this project due to 5 million dollar budget deficit. Astronomers are currently using repaired version of telescopes called Green Bank Telescope, which were damaged due to a windstorm in 1988. [via Physorg]