According to project director Bernie Fanaroff, the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope will be looking for signs of life on other planets. Awesome!

The SKA project will play host to the most powerful radio astronomy telescope in world once the project is completed. But construction is only set to begin in 2017, so don’t hold your breath if you’re hoping to have your own ET by end of the week.

“We want to look for organic molecules, the molecules of life out in space and, of course, we want to look for extraterrestrial intelligence,” he told delegates at a New Age breakfast in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

The majority of the project will be based in the Karoo desert of South Africa, including the full dish array and the dense aperture array. The  low frequency dish will be located in West Australia.

So, if we have it on Earth and we are looking out at all these stars and new planets which are being discovered, we hope to be able to see if there is a civilisation out there that is broadcasting.

Fanaroff said that the global project has 10 member countries, and four guest countries, and that the costs of the project will be shared between all countries.

Every country wants to be able to say we are investing in it and what are we getting back from it?” Fanaroff said. He hoped to get the United States of America on board from 2020 onwards.

We are still waiting to hear for contributions from Germany and India.

[Source: Mail & Guardian]