Anthony Beasley, director of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia, said the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) should be taken much more seriously.
By adding government support and funding it deserves. His comments were made last week at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle.
The time has come for SETI to be properly integrated into all other areas of astronomy, Beasley told the BBC.
“We would like SETI to grow from a small group of scientists and engineers in California, isolated from academia, to become as integral to astronomy and astrophysics as any other field of research,” he added.
The news comes after one of the world's largest radio telescopes, the Very Large Array in New Mexico, announced a partnership with the SETI Institute, a private nonprofit organization based in California, last week.
Despite the collaboration, funding for the search for intelligent life has been minimal compared to much more expensive scientific research such as the Large Hadron Collider.
“I would feel much more confident in providing an argument for SETI than for a particle accelerator,” British cosmologist Martin Rees told the BBC.
Sources: Photo: https://www.seti.org/
