UW News

October 18, 2007

Then and now: Searching the skies for life

This school year, University Week, the UW campus newspaper for faculty and staff, turns 25 years old. To note the occasion, throughout the year we’ll revisit some stories from our past, in no particular chronological order, and then provide a brief update on how things have changed over our quarter-century, and counting.


THEN: The story ran in University Week on Oct. 8, 1992, under the headline “Modern-day Columbuses search the stars for life.” It began, “Two UW astronomy professors will be among an elite group of scientists to greet the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the Americas with more anticipation than most. For next Monday, Columbus Day, NASA will flip the switch for a project known as SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” (It’s not a headline we’d be likely to write today, given history’s evolving view of Columbus. But that is a different story.)



The professors were UW astronomers Woodruff “Woody” Sullivan and George Lake, and SETI funding had barely escaped the federal budget ax. Later, NASA did stop funding SETI and Paul Allen stepped in with an $11.5 million grant in 2001 and another $13.5 million in 2003 to team with the University of California-Berkeley to build the Allen Telescope Array, a proposed 350 radio telescope dishes, at the Hat Creek Observatory near San Francisco.


NOW: SETI research has continued over the years. Lake left the UW several years back. Sullivan went on to become one of the founders of the SETI@home project that since 1999 has allowed millions of people to participate in the search for possible extraterrestrial signals. Since 1998, he also has been a leader in the UW’s interdisciplinary program in astrobiology. Astrobiology is concerned with the study of the origin and history of life on Earth, especially microbial life that is adapted to extreme conditions, in order to better understand where to look for it elsewhere (such as on Mars).


“Our program is producing a new breed of scientist,” said Sullivan. “Expert in his or her own discipline, but able to collaborate with a wide range of other experts in order to tackle how biology and the universe interact.”


The first phase of the Allen Array was activated, with fanfare and press coverage, late last week. One researcher referred to Contact — the film (of the Carl Sagan book) starring Jodie Foster — about the first encounter with an alien species, saying the array “will be like 200 million Jodie Fosters sitting out there listening.”


Does Sullivan of the UW expect that SETI will find a signal indicating extraterrestrial intelligence?


“I’ve always said it’s unlikely. But one has to start somewhere. Furthermore, I’m convinced that the very process of searching, independent of success or not, is (politically and socially) a salutary activity for our society.”