Now SETI Suspends Its Search For Alien Life

Now SETI Suspends Its Search For Alien Life,Our progress toward intergalactic fellowship has suffered another blow, as SETI suspended operations of its Allen Telescope Array. Funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the array is a collection of radio dishes that scan the skies for signs of life, now it'll be in "hibernation" mode until 2013, when the institute's new round of funding begins. SETI hopes to raise $ 5 million to bring the array back online before then, while it continues to use other telescopes around the world, including the Hubble Space Telescope. Lacking the money to pay its operating expenses, the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., has pulled the plug on the renowned Allen Telescope Array, a field of radio dishes that scan the skies for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.The SETI Institute's mission is to explore the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe. This is a profound search, it believes, because it explains our place among the stars.SAN JOSE, Calif. - If E.T. phones Earth, he'll get a "disconnect" signal.