Remembering Frank Drake, who led science in listening for an extraterrestrial “whisper we can’t quite hear”
Frank Drake, the eminent radio astronomer who performed the first search for extraterrestrial intelligence around other stars in 1960, died on Friday at his home near Santa Cruz, Calif. He was 92 years old. His daughter, science journalist Nadia Drake, shared the news on her website. “A titan in life,” she wrote, “Dad leaves a titanic absence.”
Drake graduated from Cornell University in 1952 with an engineering physics degree. Under the Navy’s ROTC program, he then served three years as an electronics officer onboard a heavy cruiser, the U.S.S. Albany. As a graduate student and Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University from 1955 to 1958, he studied radio astronomy under the tutelage of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a trailblazing astrophysicist renowned for correctly proposing that stars were mostly made of hydrogen and helium.
“If you look at today’s radio SETI experiments, they’re all still doing Project Ozma,” says Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., where Drake worked for more than a quarter-century until he retired in 2010. “They’re doing it with enormously better equipment and with many more targets, but the experiment itself is to look for narrowband signals coming from the sky. And that was Frank’s idea.
The Arecibo message was Drake’s farthest-reaching attempt at interstellar signaling, but it was neither the first nor the last time he was involved in such work.
“Personally, I find nothing more tantalizing than the thought that radio messages from alien civilizations in space are passing through our offices and homes, right now, like a whisper we can’t quite hear,” Drake wrote with typical understated gusto in the preface to his 1992 memoir.
日本 最新ニュース, 日本 見出し
Similar News:他のニュース ソースから収集した、これに似たニュース記事を読むこともできます。
SETI Pioneer Frank Drake Leaves a Legacy of Searching for Voices in the VoidRemembering Frank Drake, who led science in listening for an extraterrestrial “whisper we can’t quite hear”
続きを読む »
WWE Promotes “Triple H” Paul Levesque to Content Chief, Frank Riddick to Additional Role of PresidentElevating the two executives 'will enhance WWE’s ability to create premium content for our partners around the world and, ultimately, drive our business forward,' say co-CEOs Stephanie McMahon and Nick Khan.
続きを読む »
Eagles' A.J. Brown Explains How He's Different Than Every Other Wide Receiver🦅🏈EAGLESON10: “I’m not out here trying to juke the world, I’m trying to score touchdowns every time I get the ball. Crazy thing about it, man, whenever I touch the ball my mindset is run ... because whenever a guy stops his feet, I got him.”
続きを読む »
Below Deck Med's Kyle Viljoen Tells All on His Kiss With a Charter Guest - E! OnlineBelow Deck Mediterranean's Kyle Viljoen fell head over heels for charter guest Frank, but does he regret taking things one step further and kissing him? Find out in E!'s exclusive interview.
続きを読む »
SETI Pioneer Frank Drake Leaves a Legacy of Searching for Voices in the VoidRemembering Frank Drake, who led science in listening for an extraterrestrial “whisper we can’t quite hear”
続きを読む »