FRANK DRAKE, the founder of the (SETI), wants to take the search for aliens further: about 82 billion kilometres away, in fact.
At this point in space, electromagnetic signals from planets orbiting distant stars would be focused by the gravitational lensing effect of our sun, making them, in theory, more easily detected. Drake wants to send spacecraft there in a bid to overhear alien communications, which would be too faint for telescopes on Earth to detect.
It鈥檚 neither a new or original idea, but it has never taken off because of the distances involved. With existing propulsion technologies, spacecraft would take hundreds of years to make the voyage, which is about 550 times the distance from Earth to the sun.
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Gravitational lenses could also be used to transmit signals, amplifying them so they could travel further and potentiallyreach distant civilisations. It鈥檚 also possible, Drake says, that intelligent civilisations have built an intergalactic internet using such techniques and are just 鈥渨aiting for us to log on鈥�.
Drake spoke last week at the in Long Beach, California.
