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The origins of the SETI Project
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SETI@home is probably the largest computer project in the world as it utilises the home computers (plus many school and business computers) of over 2.5 million users (2,682,000 at 13 January 2001) in hundreds of countries (226 countries at 03 May 2003).
Anyone with a home computer and access to the Internet can become part of the phenomenen.
Over 3000 new users join each day!
If you are not yet part of SETI@home and would like to get involved, follow the links on the Join SETI@home page.
The scientific search for extraterrestrial life began in ernest in the late 1950s with the post-war non-military use of radio astronomy. Strangely though, this was shortly after the alleged (but strongly denied) discovery of an alien space craft near Roswell, New Mexico - obviously a coincidence, although I doubt whether Fox Mulder would agree.
The origins of SETI can be traced back to as early as 1959 when two Cornell physicists, Giuseppi Cocconi and Philip Morrison, published an article in Nature (v.184 no. 4690, pp. 844-846) in which they pointed out the potential for using microwave radio to communicate between the stars. The following year, Frank Drake conducted the first microwave radio search for signals from other solar systems. He later conceived an approach to bind together the terms involved in estimating the number of technological civilizations that may exist in our galaxy.
SETI@home began in May 1999 when the Space Sciences Lab at Berkeley University, California needed more computer power to analyse the data they had obtained from the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico.
This data, which amounts to 35 Gigabytes per day, is far more than all the computers at the University were capable of dealing with if they were run constantly for the next hundred years.
On 16 December 2000 the total CPU time used by the SETI@home project passed the half million years mark.
In December 1994 David Gedye and Craig Kasnoff had come up with the idea of using people's home computers to augment the resources at Berkeley. This idea was now to take on substance. The original hope of getting between 50,000 and 100,000 home computers involved has been exceeded many times over.
Each days data from the Arecibo Radio Telescope is divided into 0.25 MB work units for use by the SETI@home computers.
SETI@home has now reached the point where it's combined resources exceeds the most powerful computer in the world (IBM's ASCI White) by 25% and costs a mere fraction of it.
This idea is so simple and yet so powerful - at its peak, utilising 1000 years of processor time per day!! - that it is being copied all over the world to analyse large quantities of data, primarily for research purposes.
The original concept was that it would run for two years. By this time the telescope at Arecibo would have covered all the available areas of the sky three times.
During that time there have been several technological advances in the field of radio astronomy and there are some other high quality radio telescopes that look at different parts of the sky from Arecibo.
Perhaps a fresh start in another part of the world? Who Knows?
"2001 and beyond: Due to the incredible response we will be able to extend SETI@home past its initial two year life span. We're planning for SETI@home II now. We may increase our radio band coverage at Arecibo by adding another recorder system. We may add a recording system to a telescope in the southern hemisphere so we can see an entirely different part of the sky. We'll also add new features to our web site showing more details of the process of the analysis process, and show in more detail your personal contribution to SETI@home."
Quote from SSL Berkeley Project Plan
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| Site Created 15 December 2000 |