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Tuning In on Extraterrestrials |
| Section: NATURAL SCIENCE / AT THE EDGE |
| Author: Seth Shostak |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 6/1/1995 |
| Size: 2,466 Words, 17,407 Characters |
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The universe is vast beyond comprehension. A half-trillion stars patiently wheel in the slow dance of the Milky Way galaxy. So great is their number that they meld into a continuous band of light across the nighttime sky, despite the fact that each is separated from its neighbors by tens of trillions of miles. Beyond the Milky Way, the frozen vacuum of space is interrupted by the glow of other galaxies, each with its own prodigious complement of stars. It is a pattern that repeats as far as we can see, to the dim, red limits of the measurable universe.vbcrlf In all this enormity, Earth appears to be of the smallest consequence: a tiny plankton in an immense sea, and neither special nor remarkable. It is not surprising, then, that if you ask a ...
. . .
...nd that it is a waste of both money and telescope time trying to learn if the aliens are out there. But the scientists working in the sheep country of Parkes have a simple but powerful rebuttal: If you don't do the experiment, you will never know. So they are willing to take the long shot, to make a small but dramatic bid to validate our place in the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos. vbcrlf
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