Science · Research & investigation
Frank Drake
Radio astronomer and Project Ozma investigator
Photograph · Image credit
Who they are
Frank Drake organized Project Ozma at Green Bank in 1960, searching nearby stars for possible artificial radio transmissions. His later account describes receiver construction, observations of Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, and follow-up checks on an apparent signal. The episode became an early practical example of searching while testing for terrestrial interference.
He links ideas about other technological civilizations to a bounded observing program.
Selected contributions
- Led Project Ozma’s 1960 radio search at Green Bank.Source ↗Source 2 ↗
- Recounted checks showing that an initially striking signal was terrestrial interference.Source ↗
Selected works
Primary text · 1979
A Reminiscence of Project Ozma
Drake recounts building and operating Project Ozma and following up an apparent signal that proved to be terrestrial interference. This retrospective explains the practical search and its false-positive checks.
Cosmic Search, volume 1, number 1 (1979), recalling the 1960 observations.
Reading scope & citation
Opening, receiver design, observation/interference passages and 1979 copyright freshly read; prior documented inspection also retained.
In the timeline
Biography sources & portrait credit
- NRAO historical timeline: Project Ozma ↗National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- A Reminiscence of Project Ozma ↗Frank D. Drake / Cosmic Search; NRAO hosted copy
Portrait credit
Raphael Perrino. CC BY 2.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph. Cropped to 4:5, resized to 320 × 400 and converted to WebP.
