Science & technology | Is there anybody out there?

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence moves up a gear

And we might even get answers soon

|SEATTLE

IN 1990, A year into the journey to Jupiter of an American spacecraft called Galileo, Carl Sagan, a well-known astronomer, turned the probe’s instruments back towards Earth. He wanted to find out whether it was possible to detect evidence of life on the planet from a distance.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Is there anybody out there?”

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