Ideas for finding ET are getting more inventive

This monthVLACOSMICSETIKATVLA the (Very Large Array) radio-astronomy observatory in New Mexico will begin sending every bit of data it harvests for astronomers’ research projects to , a computer cluster dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (). A similar system has been piggybacking on the Meer observatory in South Africa (pictured) since December.Over the next two years, the alone will cast an eye over 40m stars. Computers will also be mining data from past surveys, in radio frequencies and in visible light, for anything that seems both unnatural and not from Earth, says James Davenport, an astronomer at the University of Washington who works with such surveys.