Steven Spielberg's ET enchanted 1980s film audiences

The University of Glamorgan has launched a three-year degree in astrobiology, part of which will examine hit films.

About half a dozen students have signed up, and lecturers say they hope its popularity will grow as word spreads.

Astrophysicist Rhodri Evans hoped it would stimulate interest in science.

Contact, which was written by Carl Sagan, a world-famous astrophysicist, contains a lot of very important science in it, even though it is fictitious Dr Rhodri Evans

The university said astrobiology was also a major driving force behind current space programmes, as recent excitement over the possibility of finding organic life on Titan showed.

The course is being run by the Pontypridd-base university's Centre for Astronomy and Science Education, and modules will include exploring the sky, vertebrate zoology, science and the media and life in the universe.

It will encompass popular culture, such as films like K-Pax starring Kevin Spacey, alongside studying more obscure texts, laboratory-based study and stargazing.

Unfriendly aliens came calling in the Tom Cruise film War of the Worlds

Dr Evans said while a number of universities had already run courses in the subject, this was the UK's first full degree.

"Science fiction is one of the main areas where the whole issue of life beyond the earth - either going and finding that life or that life coming to earth in the case of something like War of the Worlds - is discussed.

"The wonderful book and film Contact which was written by Carl Sagan, who was a world-famous astrophysicist, contains a lot of very important science in it, even though it is a fictitious story."

Close Encounters

Tours will be made of schools in south Wales to try to interest pupils in science.

"There is a crisis of the number of people staying in science," said Dr Evans. "We think astrobiology can be used to get people excited about science.

On the subject of "dumbing down", course leader Professor Mark Brake said: "People's interest in quite serious and scientific sober issues is often sparked by popular culture."

He said films such as ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had their place "because they have influenced the scientists that do the searching".

Prof Brake said there had been a "big revolution in astronomy" with the discovery of planets outside the solar system in the past decade.

"There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand in all the beaches on Earth," said Prof Brake.

He recently presented a lecture at the National Science Museum on the history of astrobiology to 400 children wearing alien costumes, as a precursor to the Science Museum's exhibition Aliens.