Page 22 - Cornice_Grade 10
P. 22
Humans are preoccupied been listening. Drake aimed a
with the notion that other radio telescope to two nearby
intelligent life forms exist in stars in 1960 and waited for
the universe and could the ring of the hotline. He
perhaps interact with us. Or received a ton of static
perhaps even obliterate us. interference from a covert
But why haven't we heard military experiment in place of
from them yet if there is life intelligent messages. In spite
elsewhere? Maybe we have. of this disheartening result,
the SETI project, which seeks
The astronomer Frank Drake extraterrestrial intelligence-
developed a formula in 1961 was established.
that estimated there would
be millions of civilizations Later on August 15 1977, a
among the stars. His 'Drake different SETI program picked
Equation' piqued our interest up a brief radio signal
even though it was based on
some somewhat speculative emanating from the
premises. Are we merely a constellation Sagittarius. The
tiny component in a vast day's data analysis at the "Big
cosmic zoo? Ear" telescope was being done
by Jerry Ehman, who was so
Other civilisations have not enthused that he scrawled
spoken because we have not "Wow!" in the printout's
margin. That "Wow!" signal is