For CCSN Planetarium, the search for life is on

Thursday, July 11, 2002 | 8:26 a.m.

When it comes to finding intelligent life in outer space, it seems everybody is spellbound by the idea.

In June more than 300 stargazers huddled in a desert lot anticipating a UFO that Amazing Kreskin predicted would fly over Las Vegas.

Last week Roswell, N.M., hosted its fifth annual UFO festival. And NASA states that finding "life beyond" is part of its vision of the future.

"There's life out there," said Dale Etheridge, director of The Planetarium at the Community College of Southern Nevada and member of CCSN's science faculty. "The problem is finding it."

With its new show "In Search of Intelligence," The Planetarium takes a less-showy approach to the possibility of intelligent life beyond our planet. The show delves into past and present theories and potential communication problems should we encounter intelligent life.

"Just what are the complexities and how difficult would it be to find it, that's what this program touches on," Etheridge said.

The slide show/video production, which opened Friday, discusses barriers of communication with species on our own planet, looks at life on the ocean floor (an idea that was once thought impossible) and touches briefly on the SETI@home project an experimental project operated from the University of California, Berkeley, that uses Internet-connected computers and the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico to record and analyze radio signals from outer space.

"In Search of Intelligence" was produced by the Sudekum Planetarium of the Cumberland Science Museum in Nashville, Tenn. Etheridge adapted the program for CCSN audiences and first featured it at The Planetarium in 1999.

Because of its popularity, staff updated the program and brought it back to The Planetarium.

The idea that life exists elsewhere in the universe has long been a popular topic among scientists and the general public, Etheridge said.

"Most of the astronomers agreed that the probability that there was life on other planets was high," he said, "but the likelihood of finding it wasn't."

Scientists today are earnestly trying to find life within our own solar system, Etheridge said. Any self-replicating system, such as bacteria or amoeba, would qualify as life.

The 35-minute show is followed by The Planetarium's Sky Watch program that explores the evening sky projected onto the planetarium's dome. Telescope viewing sessions are held at the campus observatory after the 7:30 p.m. productions.

The planetarium was originally built for academic uses. It held its first public shows in 1977 and now attracts about 11,000 visitors each year. More than half are school children who are attending daytime programs.

The college is in the planning stages to build a new planetarium at the West Charleston Campus that would be double its size and accommodate larger audiences.