Looking back: The Sky at Night

July 1965

On 23 July 1965, The Sky at Night celebrated its 100th episode. The team tackled one of humanity’s greatest questions: are we alone in the Universe; and if there are civilisations on other planets, how would we contact them?

Though astronomers and philosophers alike had pondered the question for decades, technology only caught up to their musings in the

1960s. Astronomers were then able to listen out for alien radio signals leaking out into space. In 1960, US astronomer Frank Drake began Project Ozma, using the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia to listen to nearby stars.

▲ The Green Bank radio telescope began the search for alien transmissions