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October 11, 2008 1:24:03 AM CDT

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New Telescope Joins Alien Hunt

Posted Jun 11, 08 2:47 PM CDT in Science & Health 

(Newser) – If ET is within a hop, skip, and a solar system, a shiny new European telescope might just turn him up, Space.com reports. Made up of up to 25,000 antennae scattered throughout Europe, the LOFAR, or Low Frequency Array, will be able to scan light signals overlooked by higher-frequency telescopes of yore. If aliens are like us, they’ll use those frequencies for radio and TV signals.

Picking up Klingon FM is pretty unlikely, scientists admit—“To think that ET television will still be broadcast into space the way we do, I think is being a bit naïve,” said one astronomer—and LOFAR has its limitations, like its unimpressive 1 light-year range. But it can scan huge swaths of sky at once, so even the briefest alien flicker shouldn’t escape its gaze.

Source Space.com

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This image provided by NASA shows Saturn's moon Enceladus is seen here as a white disk across the unilluminated side of Saturn's rings (black and white stripes across the bottom of the image). This image...   (AP Photo/NASA)
The LOFAR array will include up to 25,000 small antennae.   (Shutterstock)
Two "aliens" pose for a photograph in front of Imagine That Scrapbooks on Main Street in downtown Roswell, N.M., Friday, July 6, 2007, during the UFO Festival.   (AP Photo/Roswell Daily Record Mark Wilson)
In this image provided by NASA shows a newly expanded image of the Helix nebula Friday Aug. 24, 2007 lending a festive touch to the fourth anniversary of the launch of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.   (AP Photo)
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