NEARLY 400 YEARS AGO, ITALIAN astronomer Galileo Galilei published a book that built a case for an alternative view of the Solar System, one that revolved not around Earth but the Sun.Initially licensed by the Roman Inquisition, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems proved so controversial that the book was banned for the next 190 years. Skeptics refused to look through Galileo's telescope to see for themselves the moons of Jupiter, Saturn's rings and other celestial objects, observations that supported Galileo's then-radical theory that Earth was not the center of the universe. Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest.Hoping for a more openminded outcome, a group of scientists is borrowing Galileo's name to marquee a research project as controversial as any pursued by Galileo himself-a systematic survey for evidence of extraterrestrial technological artifacts.
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