Date:
Mon Oct 17 13:40:16 2005
Referred By:
Just Surfed On In
Wrote...
AT CREEK, Calif.--It's easy to spot Jack Welch's airplane as it glides
past the foothills near this tiny mountain town. It's the only one.
Hardly anyone lives out this way--just a few thousand locals and a trickle
of tourists. That's what makes it the perfect spot for what has turned into
Welch's life work: listening to outer space.
These days, the UC Berkeley professor's job has become a bit more precise.
He's the first to hold the university's chair for the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence--what researchers say is the first academic
position of its kind in the world.
That's right, he's waiting for ET to get on the phone.
"We get that a lot," said Welch, who teaches astronomy and electrical
engineering. Smiling politely at "X-Files" jokes, UFO questions and "Star Trek"
references is practically part of the job. It's also part of his life. His
wife, Jill Tartar, heads Project Phoenix for the Mountain View-based Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence (known as SETI) near San Jose. She was the model
for the astronomer played by Jodie Foster in the 1997 film "Contact," which is
based on a story by Carl Sagan.
With his appointment to the university's chair, Welch can place even
greater emphasis on one of his great passions: finding evidence that human
beings are not alone in the universe.
"What's important about this position is the recognition that what we are
working with is serious, legitimate science," he said. "We know so little about
what's out there, not to look for [intelligent life] is really foolish."
Scientists have been looking "out there" from the university's Hat Creek
Observatory near Lassen Peak in the Cascades since the 1960s. Welch helped set
up the radio astronomy lab, and UC Berkeley scientists have been tracking
signals sent by planets, stars, black holes and galaxies ever since.
Ten radiotelescopes scan the heavens from a small plateau in the
mountains. The whir and whine of their motors cut through the country
stillness. Their round, white faces tilt in unison as a computer runs a
"script," telling them where to point. A coyote watches this eerie ballet from
the edge of a nearby clearing. Swallows flutter away when their perch suddenly
swivels.
Welch, 65, has been making the trip to Hat Creek for more than 40 years.
He became a researcher at the university's observatory there in 1963 and served
as director from 1972 to 1996. Rather than make the five- to six-hour drive
north from the Bay Area, Welch learned to fly.
"Interstate 5 wasn't built then, and on each trip up here I'd see a few
accidents on the roads," he said. "I figured the odds were against me, so
flying to Hat Creek looked like a good idea."
Welch now flies in weekly in his blue Cessna as he carries out his
five-year mission. The Watson and Marilyn Albert chair he has held since
September was set up with a $500,000 gift by a pair of Berkeley alumni.
The professor plans to build 500 to 1,000 radiotelescopes, which will be
electronically connected to form one enormous instrument. The array would cover
more than two acres and have a collecting area of 10,000 square meters. The
giant telescope is expected to cost about $25 million.
"The exciting thing is we think we can arrange to look in several
directions at once, which means that instead of looking at 10 stars, we can
look at hundreds of stars," Welch said.
The resulting radiotelescope will be devoted largely to the search for
extraterrestrial life. The instrument will scan the universe and listen for a
signal whose power and narrow focus make it stand out from galactic "noise." If
such a signal is heard, an alarm will sound and scientists will search for the
source.
"If someone is sending a beacon and they're within 10 light years, we'll
be able to hear it. We'll be able to have a conversation,"