Whats this Project Ozma Ive heard tell about among astronomers?
Oz seems to be popular in the astronomical community. So it seemed only natural that one of the first SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) programs, in 1960, should be called Project Ozma, named for the ruler of Oz. Frank Drake called it that because he knew that distant planets, like Oz, were “very far away, difficult to reach, and populated by exotic beings.” Using one of the earliest radio telescopes, in West Virginia, Drake examined a whole whopping two stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, for radio signals that could indicate intelligent, technologically advanced beings living on a planet orbiting those stars. Of course, he didn’t find any, although there were a few false alarms. In 1973, Ben Zuckerman of the University of Maryland and Patrick Palmer of the University of Chicago initiated a follow-up search, Ozma II, which scanned 600 stars, but with no greater success. For more information about Project Ozma, check out http://www.bigear.org/vol1no1/ozma.htm.
