February 8, 1999
BERKELEY -- The University of California, Berkeley, and the SETI Institute have teamed up to design and build an array of 500 to 1,000 radio telescopes whose primary task will be to seek out signals from civilizations elsewhere in our galaxy.
Rather than construct one large and expensive radio telescope like the famous dish at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, or even an array of many large, custom-built telescopes like the Very Large Array in New Mexico, the UC Berkeley/SETI Institute team will explore the use of many inexpensive antennas similar to those used for backyard TV reception. By electronically coupling many dishes together, a large "radio ear" can be constructed at a fraction of the cost of more conventional approaches. The project is estimated to cost less than $25 million, and could be completed by 2004.
"This represents a paradigm shift in the design and construction of radio telescopes," said Jill Tarter, science team leader for the Institute's current SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program. "We hope to demonstrate that a premium instrument need not have a premium price."
UC Berkeley researchers emphasize, though, that the novel array will be spectacular for radio astronomy, too. Because of its unique construction, the telescope could be used simultaneously for SETI and other radio astronomy observations.
"The instrument we want to build will have unique capabilities for observing objects from the solar system to the edge of the Universe," said Leo Blitz, director of the UC Berkeley Radio Astronomy Lab and professor of astronomy. "Our goal is nothing short of standing the way radio astronomy has been done up to now on its head."
The array will eventually comprise a total collecting area of 10,000 square meters, or one hectare (2.47 acres), hence the project's current name, the One Hectare Telescope, or 1hT. When completed, the 1hT will be among the world's largest radio telescopes. By comparison, the Arecibo telescope, which is the world's largest, is 1,000 feet in diameter and has a collecting area of about 73,000 square meters (about 18 acres).
Once completed, the 1hT will be the world's largest observing facility devoted substantially to SETI. SETI observations require not only a large collecting area -- to find the weak signals expected from a transmitter many light years away -- but also highly sophisticated digital receivers to scrutinize millions of radio channels.
For SETI observations, dedicated time on large radio telescopes is scarce and expensive. The result for SETI is less than optimal; at best, SETI scientists are able to scan only a few hundred star systems per year. The 1hT would allow this number to expand at least tenfold. In the Milky Way Galaxy alone, there are an estimated 400 billion stars.
"UC Berkeley has one of the world's premier radio astronomy programs, along with first-rate programs in engineering and computer science, " said Tarter. "Together, we can design and build an instrument for that will have no peer for this type of work."
The first goal will be to build a prototype composed of perhaps a dozen small radio dishes at UC Berkeley's Hat Creek Observatory, located near Mt. Lassen in northern California. The Hat Creek Observatory is the site of the ten- telescope array now operated by UC Berkeley, called BIMA (Berkeley-Illinois- Maryland Array). Once the 1hT concept has been proven and the electronics are working, the team would embark on the construction of an array of up to 1,000 telescopes, probably also at Hat Creek. The number of telescopes will depend on the ultimate size of the individual dishes, which could be 12 feet or 18 feet in diameter, whichever provides the most cost-effective solution.
The design concept of the 1hT should significantly reduce the cost of construction, according to UC Berkeley and SETI Institute researchers. A comparably sized instrument, the 300-foot Green Bank Telescope now under construction at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia, will cost at least $75 million. The 1hT, whose sensitivity at the frequencies of interest to SETI will be similar to the Green Bank Telescope, is predicted to cost less than one-third as much as that instrument. The smaller telescopes of the 1hT would also be much less expensive to maintain.
Unlike conventional radio telescopes, the 1hT is also scalable. By adding new dishes to the array, the 1hT could be made larger at relatively low cost. And while damage to the collecting surface of a traditional radio telescope is expensive and time-consuming to repair, the individual dishes of the 1hT can be replaced quickly and cheaply.
UC Berkeley's lead astronomer on the 1hT project, Professor of Astronomy William "Jack" Welch, plans to support a targeted SETI search in addition to conducting observations of star-forming regions. The newly-appointed Watson and Marilyn Alberts Chair for SETI at UC Berkeley, Welch said that the 1hT team will begin the search with 1,000 nearby sun-like stars and gradually moving outward to encompass 100,000 then one million candidate stars in our galaxy. The team will search for strong signals at a single frequency -- like radar or radio broadcasts from Earth -- as well as pulsed signals that repeat. The 1hT computer system will conduct an analysis, to be performed eventually by a receiver on a mass-produced integrated circuit chip, designed to alert researchers immediately to signals of interest. Funds for the 1hT will be raised from private sources under the direction of the SETI Institute. The Institute's Project Phoenix is currently the world's largest privately supported radio astronomy enterprise, with an annual budget of more than $3 million.
Blitz and Tarter note that the 1hT would also prove the feasibility of an even larger array of telescopes -- perhaps as many as 100,000 -- with a total collecting area of a square kilometer, or one million square meters. This so-called Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is being developed as a major international collaboration for radio astronomers in the next century. If built, the SKA would surpass Arecibo as the world's largest radio telescope.
University of California-Berkeley
February 8, 1999
BERKELEY -- A new academic chair at the University of California, Berkeley, may well be the first ever reserved for an astronomer involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, called SETI.
The Watson and Marilyn Alberts Chair in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, established in the Department of Astronomy at UC Berkeley, was created last year thanks to a generous gift by the two alumni who have had a long-standing interest in the field.
"It's a real honor," said the first holder of the chair, William "Jack" Welch, former director of UC Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Laboratory and current vice president of the Mountain View-based SETI Institute. "The search for extraterrestrial intelligence embraces many fields of science -- physics, astronomy, computer engineering -- and this position supports them all. I'm very proud to be the first appointee."
The chair will provide support in perpetuity for SETI research at UC Berkeley and "will serve to enhance its status as an area of serious scientific inquiry," according to the proposal approved by the UC Regents in June of last year. Welch was appointed in September.
Welch is set to embark on one of the most ambitious SETI projects to date -- construction of an array of 500-1,000 radio telescopes dedicated in part to searching for intelligent signals from space.
The telescope array, dubbed the One Hectare Telescope, or 1hT, will cost approximately $25 million and comprise a total collecting area of 10,000 square meters, or one hectare (2.47 acres). For comparison, the world's largest radio dish, at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, is 1,000 feet in diameter and 18 acres in area.
"The idea is to try to build a big telescope and do it inexpensively," Welch said. "By using a large number of satellite TV antennas and inexpensive receivers we will build ourselves, we can get a very sensitive antenna that is much cheaper than the cost of building one big reflecting dish and one large receiver."
Once completed, the 1hT will be the world's largest observing facility devoted substantially to SETI. The most likely site is UC Berkeley's Hat Creek Observatory near Mt. Lassen in northern California. Hat Creek has housed UC Berkeley radio telescopes since its founding in 1960 and currently is the site of a ten-telescope array -- called BIMA (Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Array) -- operated by the campus's Radio Astronomy Laboratory.
Welch emphasizes that the novel array will be spectacular for radio astronomy too.
"Because of its unique construction, the telescope can be used simultaneously for SETI and other radio astronomy," Welch said. "We plan to have multiple beams on the sky, and, because of the wide field of view of the small antennas, we can look at more than one object at a time."
"Searching for other civilizations is very important, and the discovery of an intelligent signal from space would have all sorts of repercussions," said Watson Alberts, a physiologist and now retired science administrator from the National Institutes of Health. "But that discovery may be a long time from now. A chair at Cal is a way to guarantee that research in this area will continue."
"Our interest in SETI has been steady over the years," added his wife, Marilyn Alberts, a former high school English teacher. "Only after retiring to California did we start to get involved."
Watson has volunteered with UC Berkeley's long-running SETI project called SERENDIP, which analyzes radio signals picked up from the Arecibo radio telescope. The Alberts also have contributed to the financial support of the project.
The new endowed chair will provide support for a chair holder in the astronomy department to conduct his or her research. Should intelligent life be discovered in the universe, the chair could be opened up to researchers in other departments, such as linguistics, who are "conducting relevant research to further the study of extraterrestrial intelligence."
Welch is a well-known radio astronomer who earned his PhD in electrical engineering from UC Berkeley in 1960. He led the Radio Astronomy Laboratory as director from 1971 to 1996, and was the main force behind the BIMA array operated jointly by UC Berkeley and the universities of Illinois and Maryland. Completed in 1996, it consists of 10 six-meter radio dishes tuned to millimeter wavelengths suitable for studying cool matter in the universe.
Welch stepped down in 1996 to pursue his own research full time. His specialty areas include millimeter-wave interferometry, molecular-line radio astronomy, star formation and instrumentation for radio astronomy. He currently has a joint appointment at UC Berkeley in the astronomy and electrical engineering departments.
He is no stranger to SETI -- his wife is Jill Tarter, science team leader for the SETI Institute and holder of the institute's Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI. Welch currently is vice president of the institute. He has chaired the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee for the Sub-Millimeter Array of the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and served as a member of the Millimeter Development Consortium for the NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) Millimeter Array.
Marilyn Alberts graduated from UC Berkeley in 1955 with a BA in English, while Watson Alberts graduated in 1951 with a BA in physics and in 1956 with a PhD in biophysics.
He went on to work in the field of human neurophysiology, specifically Parkinson's Disease, at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco, in the laboratory of Senator Dianne Feinstein's late husband, Bert Feinstein. From 1972 until 1994 he worked at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, primarily as deputy director of its fundamental neuroscience program. Marilyn taught English at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland.
Upon their retirement in 1994, the couple moved back to California and settled in El Cerrito. They have two children, a daughter Allison Alberts Worley, who graduated from UC Berkeley in 1982, and a son, Allan. Both live in San Diego.
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