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Projects: SETI Optical Telescope

Optical SETI and The Planetary Society

The new Optical SETI telescope at the Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, Massachusetts, which was inaugurated on April 11, 2006, is the latest and greatest of the optical SETI projects sponsored by The Planetary Society over the years. It is, however, far from the first. Over the years the Society has sponsored several other optical SETI programs, making it a world leader in the funding of optical SETI research.

Society funded optical SETI projects have been divided between the east and west coasts of the U.S. -- two at the Harvard University and Smithsonian Observatory in Massachusetts, and two at the University of California, Berkeley. The Harvard projects are led by Physics Professor Paul Horowitz of Harvard; the University of California projects by Geoff Marcy and Dan Werthimer.

"We have been listening for alien signals for decades; it's time we started to watch for signals as well," said Louis Friedman, Executive Director of the Planetary Society. "These four optical SETI projects brought the total number of SETI projects sponsored by the Planetary Society to eight -- and brings our historic funding total for SETI to more than $1,000,000."

Click to enlarge > The Optical SETI telescope seen through the observation window The Optical SETI Telescope at the Oak Ridge Observatory is viewed here through the observation window at the side of the observatory. The telescope's 72'' mirror is clearly visible. The picture was taken on the occasion of the telescope's inauguration, April 11, 2006.

Werthimer's optical SETI system looks for very short pulses of light from nearby stars similar to the Sun, as well as from a few globular clusters and galaxies. Using Berkeley's 30-inch (76-centimeter) automated telescope at Leuschner Observatory, the project searches for light pulses that may last as short as one billionth of a second.

Marcy's project searches for steady, extremely narrow band or single-color light signals. Marcy uses data from his extensive extrasolar planet searches, data from the Lick and Keck observatories, as well as data from an Australian search.

Horowitz, with colleagues Jonathan Wolff, Chip Coldwell and Costas Papaliolios, built an improved system inspired by Werthimer's design. Their detector is attached to a 61-inch (1.5-meter) optical telescope next to The Planetary Society-sponsored BETA radio telescope in Harvard, Massachusetts. The optical telescope taps into the light being studied by astronomers David Latham and Robert Stefanik, who are currently measuring the speed of 2,500 nearby sun-like stars, and who are co-investigators in the optical search. The experiment's photometer can detect pulses as short as a few billionths of a second.

Searching for narrow-band laser pulse SETI signals was first suggested by Nobel prize winner Charles Townes of the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Townes is a co-investigator with Marcy and Werthimer. Stuart Kingsley of Columbus, Ohio performed early optical SETI observations. The current projects, with their advanced detectors, were recommended in a study conducted by the SETI Institute, which is also helping to sponsor some of the searches.

Click to enlarge > The Optical SETI Observatory The observatory building housing the Optical SETI telescope at the Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, Massacusetts on April 10, 2006, a day before its inauguration. The retractable roof and the tip of the telescope (seen through the observation window) are clearly visible. Credit: The Planetary Society

Horowitz and his team have now completed their most ambitious project yet - the dedicated Optical SETI observatory. Armed with a grant from The Planetary Society, they have built a brand new observatory from the ground up at the Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, Massachusetts. With its 72'' primary mirror, it is not just the only large telescope in North America devoted to SETI; it is also the largest optical telescope in the U.S. east of the Mississippi!