Targeted Search

The targeted search strategy identifies a few candidate stars as having a high probability of supporting communicating life. Age, brightness, and possibility of planets are among the criteria used to select the candidates. The targeted search uses a small number of very large telescopes. They have very high sensitivity; that is they can detect very weak signals. However, they have a small angle of view; they cannot see much of the sky at once. When the location of sky to be studied is known, small angle of view is not a great limitation.