If ET calls from some far-out planet that the Kepler spacecraft has pinpointed, Berkeley astronomers and at least a million of their computer friends will be all ears.

Sparking a new surge of interest in the possibility of life beyond our solar system, the spacecraft's mission leaders reported in February that in just four months in orbit Kepler had detected 1,235 planets - some of them in "habitable zones" - circling distant stars within a tiny patch of sky 3,000 light-years from Earth.

To read the rest of the article, click here.