Astronomers to Increase Efforts in Exploring Potential Life Outside Earth

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A group of astronomers is partnering with the Very Large Array (VLA), an observatory with 28 massive radio telescopes, to search the sky for traces of extraterrestrial life. During the last American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference, astronomers from an institute in California laid out a project that will increase efforts to explore possible life outside Earth. The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute will work with the VLA observatory in New Mexico to do comprehensive surveys of the sky. The observatory will gather data and transfer it to a supercomputer, which will analyze it for signs of life outside Earth. According to Andrew Siemion, the director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, partnering with a sophisticated facility such as the VLA can significantly help their study. The project will supplement current efforts in finding extraterrestrial civilizations, such as the Breakthrough Listen Initiative. This $100-million program, which is also led by Siemion, uses a wide range of high-tech equipment. While the study has yielded little success so far, Siemion believes that the endeavor should still be pursued. He said that humans are naturally inclined to make connections and explore the unknown. However, some people do not agree that humans should try to connect with extraterrestrial life. In 2010, renowned late physicist Stephen Hawking said that interacting with aliens might be dangerous because they might pose risks to life and resources on Earth.