Later this year, the Allen Telescope Array (yes, named after that Allen) will begin round-the-clock monitoring of radio signals from for off corners of the galaxy.
We're not really sure why there's 42 telescopes as opposed to any other number, but we're guessing that Allen must have a sense of humor.
Regardless, come later this year, there will be some serious hardware up in Hat Creek, Calif.
"When you put all these dishes together it makes a pretty large patch in the sky which you can listen to with great sensitivity — detecting signals which are either very far away or very faint," said Scott Hubbard, in an interview with Reuters. He currently holds the Carl Sagan Chair for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.
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"You don't have to have somebody who is planning to broadcast a signal. You hope to pick up somebody's old radio broadcast that left a different planet hundreds or thousands of years ago," Hubbard said.
