Page 22 - Cornice_Grade 10
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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
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