Astronomer Dr. Jill Tarter
is Director of the Institute's Center for SETI Research and also holder of the
Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI. She is one of the few researchers to have
devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings elsewhere, and there
are few aspects of this field that have not been affected by her work.
Dr. Tarter was the lead for
Project
Phoenix, a decade-long SETI scrutiny of about 750 nearby star systems,
using telescopes in Australia, West Virginia and Puerto Rico. While no clearly
extraterrestrial signal was found, this was the most comprehensive targeted
search for artificially generated cosmic signals ever undertaken. Now Jill
heads up the Institute's efforts to build and operate the Allen Telescope Array, a
massive new instrument that will eventually comprise 350 antennas, each 6
meters in diameter. This telescope will be able to enormously increase the
speed, and the spectral search range, of the Institute's hunt for signals.
Jill
recently provided an ATA
update for SPACE.com readers, in which she wrote: "One of the
good things about the ATA is that there are likely to be may stars that are
visible at any one time within its large field of view, so with multiple beam
formers, and multiple detectors, we can explore multiple stars simultaneously,
at different frequencies if we want. Furthermore, we can do this while our
astronomy colleagues are mapping the sky for hydrogen gas, or large biogenic
molecules, or other phenomena of scientific interest to them. This multiplexing
potential is a new and exciting innovation that will speed up the SETI
searching in the next decades."
Indeed, being as much of an
icon of SETI as Jill is, perhaps it is not surprising that the Jodie Foster
character in the movie "Contact" is largely based
on this real-life researcher.
Experience the ATA Firsthand
Be a part of history! Join
Jill Tarter as the Allen
Telescope Array begins operations. The ATA-42 - the first 42 elements of
the full antenna array - will do in five minutes what used to take 10 days.
When the ATA-350 is complete, it will survey tens of thousands of star systems
and eventually, millions!
You can participate in an
amazing opportunity! Be the guest of Jill and her husband, Jack Welch, a member
of the SETI Institute Board of Trustees, and Watson and Marilyn Alberts Chair
for SETI at UC Berkeley, for a dinner at their Berkeley home.
Later that evening, Jill
and Jack will fly you and three guests to Hat Creek Radio Observatory, north of
Mount Lassen, in their pressurized Cessna 210 airplane. Hat Creek is the home
of the ATA where SETI observations, as well as radio astronomical surveys, are
conducted.
Upon your arrival, Jill and
Jack will present a tutorial on how to build a very large telescope
inexpensively from a large number of small dishes. You will also be treated to
a preview of the expected scientific return from this innovative new
instrument. You will dine again with Jill and Jack and enjoy an overnight stay
in the Hat Creek House on the observatory site. The next day, you'll be able to
hike and tour the local area before your return flight. This expedition will
create life-long memories that you will share with friends and family for years
to come - and you can boast you were among the first to experience the ATA-42
and all that it promises.
To learn
more about joining Dr. Jill Tarter for the start of operations for the Allen
Telescope Array, visit SETI's Adopt a Scientist Program at: http://www.seti.org/
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