Earth Photo Caption
Project Phoenix is one of the SETI programs. It is the world's most sensitive and comprehensive search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It Uses 140 foot radio telescope and 1000-foot radio telescope in Puerto Rico to observe 1000’s of stars, one at a time, within 200 light years of earth. It searches for signals from 1000- 3000 MHz that are “narrow- band,” or on only one spot on the radio dial. These signals are considered intelligent transmissions, as it is unlikely that they would occur naturally. Project Phoenix breaks down the radio spectrum that it searches into very narrow 1 Hz-wide channels, so two billion channels are examined star the project monitors.
The Allen radio telescope array is currently being built, which will be
used for SETI and radio astronomy research. It will consist of 350
6.1-meter offset Gregorian dishes with a 2.4 meter secondary arranged in a
1km circle. These telescopes will be linked together to obtain the power
of a large dish with very high resolution. The received signals, like
those received by the Project Phoenix antennas, are processed by computers
for intelligent signals.
This is an image of the 1000- foot radio telescope dish in Puerto Rico. It is used by SETI for Project Phoenix.
