SETI@HOME 

or the quest to discover ET

SETI@home is a scientific experiment that harnesses the power of hundreds of thousands of 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. There's a small but captivating possibility that your computer will detect the faint murmur of a civilization beyond Earth. 

At dawn of a new millennium, home computing and the online community of the Internet has recently entered an exciting new era.

Forever pushing back the boundaries.  With the aid of supercomputers and the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico, scientists at the University of Berkley in the US are currently searching the ether for signs of ExtraTerrestrial Life.  This project is called "The Search For Extra Terrestrial Life" or SETI  for short.

This illustration shows the 300m Radio Telescope Dish at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

You may also be aware of the SETI operation which was the focus of the 1997 movie of "CONTACT" which starred Jodie Foster.  A large portion of this movie was actually filmed at the Arecibo Radio Telescope site in Puerto Rico.  

Now for the first time, thanks to the wonders of the internet, you can become a part of this gargantuan project.  The SETI institute amasses something around the area of 35GB of data each day from the Arecibo radio telescope.   SETI has neither the money, time or resources to process this amount amount of data daily.  This is where we the humble computer users come in, by volunteering to have our computer process this data. 

Since it's launch on May 17th 1999, the SETI project has passed 100,000 years mark in computing time, more than any other computing project in history.  There are over 1,000,000 (1 Million) registered users located in over 200 countries worldwide.

With the multitude of users worldwide, the 'net has indeed itself become a Frankenstein's monster of a supercomputer in itself. 

OK, WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO and at WHAT WILL IT COST?

You can participate in the SETI@HOME project by running a simple (free-of-charge) screen saver program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data while your computer is idle.

SETI@HOME is available for most computer platforms including; Windows 9x, Windows NT, Apple Macintosh and the many variations of UNIX / LINUX.

If you are running a Windows 9x/NT system you will need a computer with at least 32Mb RAM, the ability to display 8-bit graphics in 800x600 resolution, 10Mb of HDD Space and an connection to the internet.

 

The SETI@HOME client is available for download from the following;

WINDOWS 95/98/NT

Macintosh

Text-Only Version    (UNIX / OpenVMS / Mac OS X Server / OS2 etc.)

A screen shot of the SETI@HOME screensaver in action.

Mick Evans 1999-2001

  [email protected]

[email protected]