Humanity’s Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence Is Intensifying

(Bloomberg) -- A group of scientists want to help mankind get in touch with aliens. The initiative, called the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, uses large radio telescopes pointed at nearby stars and galaxies, part of an effort to detect electromagnetic radiation that may indicate the existence of alien technology.

In the third installment of Moonshot, a Bloomberg Originals series, we meet the people behind this momentous mission. Astronomer Jill Tarter, the basis for Jodie Foster’s character in the feature film “Contact,” has made SETI her life’s work.

“We are literally doing an experiment to find out what the answer is, rather than doing what we’ve done for millennia, which is to ask the priests and the philosophers what we should believe,” she says.

A team led by Andrew Siemion, the director of Berkeley’s SETI Research Center, is conducting the most comprehensive search ever undertaken by the project. For the next 10 years, his team will scan space as part of a $100 million, privately-funded initiative.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net

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