Now imagine what happens to that speck, and your research, when it is drowned out by a shower of light a million times its strength.

This is the plight of today's radio astronomers, who study distant sources of light for clues on the origins of our universe.

Though the night sky may look dark to you, its actually awash in radio waves, a form of light invisible to the eye. It's not just your favorite music station that fills the sky with these waves, it's the powerful signals from satellites that provide service for the world's cellular phones and pagers. And with an increasing demand for 24-hour, worldwide communication, it's getting much harder for radio astronomers to find a peaceful time and place to do their research.

The International Astronomical Union has convened a conference this month in Vienna, called "Preserving the Astronomical Sky," to search for solutions. And at a meeting in June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international organization for the world's most economically developed countries, formed a special task force to find solutions that will satisfy both science and industry.

One potential fix is to designate remote areas of the Earth as radio-quiet zones, where radio broadcasts would be restricted. Another idea is to have scientists and communications companies share the radio spectrum.

In the end, a compromise might help us discover signals that intelligent creatures are sending us from distant galaxies. SETI, the organization which conducts the most comprehensive searches for alien life, uses radio satellites to conduct their mission.