The full array of 350 antennas, as imagined by Isaac Gary. The ATA needs more funding in order to reach the goal of 350 antennas, and it is likely to be several years before reaching that goal. (Credit: Isaac Gary)
In a tiny California town town within sight of Mount Shasta and Mount Lassen is the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, home to the Allen Telescope Array--the only large-scale telescope fully at the disposal of the SETI project. (Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)
Though, the 20-foot-diameter antenna the deer was investigating was just one of 42 identical units that make up the Allen Telescope Array, currently the world's first large-scale telescope meant for the full-time use of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project.
The ATA, as it's called, opened in late 2007 with these first 42 antennas. Designed to work in pairs, the antennas are intended to work together to mimic the stellar investigatory capacity of far larger single dishes. And the ATA is hardly finished. In fact, it is planned to eventually be made up of 350 of these antennas.
And while the famous Arecibo uber-antenna in Puerto Rico, with its 73,000 square meter size, has seven times the collecting area of the full ATA, the telescope here--the array in its entirety is a telescope--will be able to look at 2,500 times as much sky as Aricebo.
via [cnet]
The ATA, as it's called, opened in late 2007 with these first 42 antennas. Designed to work in pairs, the antennas are intended to work together to mimic the stellar investigatory capacity of far larger single dishes. And the ATA is hardly finished. In fact, it is planned to eventually be made up of 350 of these antennas.
And while the famous Arecibo uber-antenna in Puerto Rico, with its 73,000 square meter size, has seven times the collecting area of the full ATA, the telescope here--the array in its entirety is a telescope--will be able to look at 2,500 times as much sky as Aricebo.
via [cnet]
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