Thanks to more than $200,000 in online donations, this fall a satellite array in eastern Shasta County will likely again turn its collective eye back to the heavens to search for extraterrestrial life.
The Allen Telescope Array, a collection of 42 20-foot tall radio dishes about 75 miles east of Redding near Hat Creek, has been in hibernation since mid-April after the state and federal government steeply cut funding.
To bring the array back online, the Mountain View-based Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute started raising money online.
Seth Shostak, SETI's senior astronomer, said it took just two months or so to reach its $200,000 goal. Some 2,306 people had donated $207,218 to the setistars.org website as of Wednesday.
"That, maybe, is more important than the number," he said of the supporters hitting the goal so quickly.
The hope, Shostak said, is that the array will be back up and running by September, and it will continue searching the skies throughout the year.
Much better than giving it to the federal government. To read the rest of the article, click here.