Last April, the SETI Institute shut down its radio telescope array in Hat Creek, California, due to lack of funds. New money has been coming in since, however, and the search for alien radio signals will resume shortly.
When it does, among the first targets will be super-Earths found by planet hunters. That number has now reached 70, including the 16 announced by the European Southern Observatory in Chile earlier this week. Unfortunately, the most interesting of that 16, a world 3.6 times as massive as Earth which seems to orbit within its parent star's habitable zone, is below the horizon at Hat Creek, but SETI researchers are still excited by the discovery of so many planets.
Some scientists, indeed, now calculate that SETI will succeed in finding an alien signal within 15 to 20 years.
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