Titanic Telescope Scans Skies For E.T.

CNET's Daniel Terdiman Visits World's First Large-Scale Telescope Meant For The SETI Project

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. (Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

(CNET) From the perspective of an extraterrestrial, I wonder if there would be much difference between a human and a deer.

You might think that's an odd question, but on Wednesday, as I stood in an open plain here, at around 5,000 feet, with Mount Shasta visible far off to the north, a stunning blue sky, I watched a deer poking around at the base of what on its own would be an odd piece of astronomy equipment.

In fact, 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.

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