SETI at Home

SETI, Or The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence

SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is a scientific effort aiming to determine if there is intelligent life out in the universe. There are many methods that SETI scientific teams use to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Many of these search billions of radio frequencies that flood the universe, looking for another civilization that might be transmitting a radio signal. Other SETI teams search by looking for signals in pulses of light emanating from the stars.

For more information about SETI and the various SETI projects that exist, take a look at the links below:

• http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ About SETI
• http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ The SETI Radio Search
• http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/morrison/index.html My 40 Years of SETI - Phil Morrison
• http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Web Sites Relating to SETI

SETI@home is one of the SETI projects that searches for extraterrestrial life. SETI@home allows anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to take part in the search. By using the computer while the owner is away, the SETI@home screensaver is able to search for extraterrestrial signals.

For more information about SETI@home and the SETI@home client program, take a look at the links below:

• http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Screensaver Graphics Explained
• http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)
• http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Listen to Radio Signals from Space
• http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Technical Paper

SETI@HOME

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SETI@home: Signal Crunching Yields Little So Far

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer, SPACE.com

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA -- More than a dozen candidate signals have been snagged by a global network of volunteers in a search for extraterrestrial intelligence called SETI@home. But one by one, the prospective SETI hits have been downgraded to misses and tagged as radio interference.

The SETI@home project has been under way since May 1999. Using data collected by the world’s largest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, some 3 million volunteers around the globe have attempted to tease out from the telescope’s star sweeping any signs of radio chatter eking from distant, inhabited worlds.

SETI@home is separate from the SETI Institute, which is engaged in several scientific and educational projects designed to search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the Universe. SPACE.com has a partnership with the SETI Institute.

Information crunching

SETI@home is based on the use of small personal computers, all working simultaneously to form the world’s largest supercomputer, said Dan Werthimer, chief scientist for the effort at the University of California, Berkeley. "It’s better than any supercomputer at any of our laboratories on the planet," he told SPACE.com.

Volunteers donate time on their computers, making use of special software to analyze data received over the Internet, and then report back the fruits of information crunching to the UC Berkeley SETI@home team.

"The volunteers donate a thousand years of computing time every day. So far, they’ve donated 700 thousand years," Werthimer said.

Candidate signals

In combing through the data, analysts eliminate signals that are caused by radio frequency interference, computer errors, and to keep an eye out for signals that repeat.

The result of that weeding through of data produced 17 extraterrestrial candidate signals -- those that show a pattern indicative of intelligence in the natural buzz and crackle of deep space.

"The most interesting signals are things that we’ve seen two or more times. We actually have a human being looking at the data, trying to figure our what are these repeating signals and why do we see them again," Werthimer said.

So far, however, all the candidate signals have turned out to be radio frequency interference. The patterns were found to be associated with the same radio frequency.

"We know they are radio pollution because when the telescope is pointed to other places, we see them as well," Werthimer said. "The pollution is coming in from the side of the telescope."

Next page: radio corruption

Corruption

Werthimer said that radio pollution is the "big bugaboo" in SETI. "It’s getting harder and harder to do SETI as more of the radio bands are corrupted by satellites, television transmitters and cell phones. Some radio bands are just so polluted we can’t search through those bands anymore."

At the moment, while SETI@home has been highly successful in attracting public involvement, none of the data crunching has yielded evidence for any extraterrestrial civilization.

"Nothing is popping out at us. But we’re going to keep digging. And the further you dig down, the better chance you have of finding a signal ... if it’s there," Werthimer said.

Despite the Universe still holding tight the true whereabouts of any ET, there is some good news. The technology for surveying all possible radio frequency bands of interest is getting better and better.

"Right now, I would say that Earthlings are just getting into the game," Werthimer said. "We need another factor of a million or a billion in capabilities before we can do a thorough search. But at the rate that technology is growing, we don’t have to wait long. It’s only 20 or 30 years away."

Deaf ear to the Universe?

Given the response to SETI@home, officials running the project are now scoping out SETI@home II.

The upgrade program means that radio band coverage at Arecibo may be increased by adding another recorder system. An additional recording system might also be utilized at a radio telescope in the southern hemisphere, opening up an entirely different part of the sky to SETI scientists.

Even with these augmentations, the search could still be putting a deaf ear to the Universe.

"Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree ... and there’s some better technology that we don’t know about. Or, perhaps, we’ve got to wait 500 years for the next revolution in physics," Werthimer said.

"But that’s like telling Christopher Columbus: Don’t bother sailing the seas ... you’ll have airplanes and that’ll make your job much easier, Werthimer said. "The point is, you’ve got to start somewhere."

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