SETI Scope Searches Stars

With millions of dollars in funding pledged by two of the men behind software giant Microsoft, the search for intelligent life on other planets got a big boost Tuesday as officials unveiled plans for a massive new telescope to scan the skies.

The Allen Telescope Array -- named for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who put up $11.5 million for the project -- will be "the world's most powerful instrument designed to seek out signals from civilizations elsewhere in our galaxy," the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute said.

Joining Allen in funding the project was former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold, who contributed $1 million toward the $26 million needed to build the field of hundreds of linked radio telescope dishes in Northern California.

"While the best scientific estimates tell us the probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is fairly high, there is great uncertainty and some controversy in the calculation," Myhrvold said in a statement.

"One thing, however, is beyond dispute. That is, if we don't continue supporting projects like the Allen Telescope Array, our chances of discovery will remain at zero."

Plans for the telescope mark a turning point for the SETI Institute, the Silicon Valley-based nonprofit, which is the world's largest private organization devoted to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The institute's Project Phoenix, which spends more than $4 million a year to buy time on large radio telescopes, is widely held to be the inspiration for the 1997 film Contact, starring Jodie Foster.

But institute researchers have never before had their own installation devoted exclusively to hunting down signals from alien worlds.

"We're overjoyed, and we're ready to move ahead," said Jill Tarter, the institute's director of research. "Paul and Nathan have understood from the beginning how exciting and groundbreaking this telescope could be. They have contributed time and ideas to our work, and now they are quite literally giving us the means to make it happen."

The telescope, which will be jointly administered by the University of California at Berkeley, will be situated about 290 miles north of San Francisco at the university's Hat Creek Observatory, a remote site that is "radio quiet" with little static or man-made interference.