For decades, the DSS-28 radio antenna in the California desert listened to the faint whisper of spacecraft exploring the solar system. It’s still listening for artificial radio signals today – the faint whisper of other civilizations. It’s controlled by students around the country and around the world.

DSS-28 is a radio dish more than a hundred feet in diameter. It was built for the Army, then transferred to NASA. It was decommissioned in the 1980s. But 40 years ago, a kindergarten teacher in California found a new use for it – as an educational tool for teachers and students.

It’s the centerpiece of the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope project. Teachers train to use the telescope, and pass that knowledge on to their students. The students then work with scientists to observe stars, planets, and other objects.

Current projects include studies of the radio waves from Jupiter; the busy regions around supermassive black holes in other galaxies; and the connection between sunspots and the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere.

Another project is SETI – the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Students have been using the telescope to scan the galactic plane – the region that outlines the disk of the Milky Way Galaxy. The first phase found no signals from other civilizations. But the telescope will scan more slices of the galaxy in the coming years – still listening for radio signals from beyond Earth.

Script by Damond Benningfield