On the lookout for intelligent signals from the stars (Image: Louie Psihoyos/Corbis)
West Virginia. It is 6 am on an April morning in 1960 and Frank Drake is freezing cold. He peers up towards the focal point of the radio telescope. He mounts a flimsy ladder to the top and climbs into a space about the size of a garbage can. For the next 45 minutes, he tunes the receiver inside, which feels like starting an old car. He climbs back down and begins to listen.
Drake and colleagues were conducting a seminal experiment: the first modern search for extraterrestrial…
