A SETI@home Update

Some scientists believe that the circumstances that permit life are so rare that there is little chance life will be found away from Earth. Others believe that the vastness of the universe suggests that life must be common elsewhere.

If you subscribe to the latter view, you might want to check out how to become a participant in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). All you need is a computer and a program called BOINC. You and your computer can then become part of a vast network of volunteers known as SETI@home.

According to the program's web site, "SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data."

SETI@home relies on millions of computer to analyze data from the Arecibo radio telescope, thus, making it the world's largest distributed processing computer network. The SETI@home program employs sophisticated digital signal processing to search for narrow band signals embedded within the radio noise received from space. The software also looks for pulsating signals and those that rise and fall in a manner that might suggest the passage of the radio telescope's field of view passing by a distant radio source.

To date SETI@home has detected radiation spikes produced naturally by stars and cosmic background radiation. So far no verifiable intelligent extraterrestrial signals have been detected. But many SETI@home people are optimistic that extraterrestrial signals will eventually be found.

Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer with the SETI Institute, wrote in 2002 that the program will have scanned a million star systems by 2020. "Of course, the first sure evidence for life elsewhere will only be found once in all human history," Shostack wrote. "I figure someone strutting the planet right now is going to be the winner in a race that will be remembered forever."

This, of course, is what motivates SETI@home volunteers. A few years ago, an article in New Scientist magazine reported that scientists associated with SETI@home had found a signal with a possible extraterrestrial origin ("Mysterious Signals from Light Years Away," 1 September 2004). This finding stimulated a rash of both enthusiastic and skeptical comments from within the SETI@home community, including these at Uplink. Prospective participants in SETI@home might wish to peruse some of these comments to better understand the SETI@home community.

Even if you are not interested in SETI@home, you should be aware that the BOINC program that drives it has many other applications. At present, BOINC allows users to donate computing power to a growing number of scientific research projects, including these:

You can participate in multiple projects if you choose. When one program isn't using your computer, that will leave time for another.

Forrest M. Mims III