SETI "Allen Telescope Array" Shut Down

Search For Extra Terrestrial Intelligence aka SETI has hibernated the Allen Telescope Array because of lack of money. The Federal and state level funding has been cut down forcing the hibernation of the Allen Telescope Array. U.C. Berkeley, a partner in the project has decided to shut down (reduce operations) the Hat Creek Radio Observatory. The hibernation will be effective starting April 2011. The step was necessary as the funds were cut down to one tenth of initial value in addition to budget cut by the state of California.

The Allen Telescope Array was initiated after receiving funds of $25 million from Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen. The array of telescopes comprises of about 42 telescopes each about 20ft wide geographically spread over 300 miles towards the north of San Fransisco. The SETI team expects to raise the $5 million fund to restore the operations as soon as possible from various sources.

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Image Credit: SETI Institute

There are thousands of users of the SETI@HOME project which lets users donate their home computer's CPU power to process the immense data collected by the telescopes.

If you are passionate about the search for extra terrestrial life, you may help the SETI project through donations. Please follow#-Link-Snipped-#to donate to the SETI project.

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