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Science
Friday > Archives
> 1999
> May
> May 28, 1999:
Hour Two: SETI Research / Open Phones
This week, a private company was scheduled to transmit a detailed radio message to stars more than 50 light years away. The scientists hope the message will be intercepted by intelligent beings on another world. In this hour, we'll take a look at other efforts to detect signs of intelligent life in the universe.
One project, called SETI@HOME, uses the power of distributed computing to help analyze the tremendous amounts of data that SETI observations can acquire. Over 400,000 users around the world have downloaded the program, available on the web, which scans for radio signals from ET's as a screensaver on ordinary computers. When it's done crunching a chunk of data, it sends it back to the project organizers and requests more.
But SETI doesn't have to be just radio astronomy. Optical SETI programs, which look for pulses of light coming from sun-like stars, also exist. On this hour of Science Friday, we'll talk about what SETI has found so far - and abut how the search will be conducted in the future.We'll follow the SETI segment with twenty minutes of open phones... so ET can phone home!
Listeners respond
Guests:
Dan Werthimer
Project Scientist, SETI@home
Project Director, SERENDIP: The Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations
Research Physicist, Space Sciences Laboratory
University of California Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Seth Shostak
Astronomer
SETI Institute
Mountain View, California
Books/Articles Discussed:
Related Links:
SETI @ HOME Project
The SETI Institute
Jodrell Bank Observatory
Columbus Optical SETI Observatory in Bexley, OH
Aricebo Observatory
This segment produced by:
Karin Vergoth
Web producer:
Charles Bergquist
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