Decadal Plan for Space Science
Southern
SERENDIP
I'm involved with plans restart the Southern Hemisphere's only SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Project, Southern SERENDIP. The 58 million channel receiver was piggy-backed onto the All Sky Survey from 1998, but has not been used in recent years.
As a result of a SETI Workshop held at Arizona State University in February, 2008, under the auspices of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, the project has received a new impetus.
Dr Frank Stootman of the University of Western Sydney has continued to maintain the equipment and to extend it into education projects. American and Italian scientists are now interested in observing programs using the equipment. In spite of its age (ten years), it may be possible to undertake these observing programs. The new Australian Centre for Astrobiology at the University of New South Wales has expressed an interest too.
Me at the Parkes radio telescope inMarch, 2008, with Southern SERENDIP
The SETI program at Parkes has been welcomed in the past because it is able to detect Radio Frequency Interference that normal radio astronomy equipment cannot, and does not cause RFI of its own. SETI is a long-shot experiment but worth doing, particularly if this makes double use of normal radio astronomy observations. Whether we are alone in the universe or not, either concept has its own profound impact on our perceptions of our place in space and time. It is perhaps the biggest of the big questions, and we have the instrumentation to look. A southern hemisphere project has a benefit over those in the northern hemisphere - Australia has a ringside seat in looking into the centre of the galaxy where there are very many more stars to search.