You too can search for ET!

You too can help search for ET!

Most folks who have an interest in astronomy, and many other folks besides, have pondered that old question of, "are we alone in the universe.?" Even most astronomers will say that the odds are certainly in our favor that there is intelligent life out there, somewhere. UFO buffs aside though, we are still searching for ET. Now you can help the search for an extraterrestrial buddy with your home computer.

The SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has developed a program called "seti at home" and it is designed to use volunteers computers when they are idle. The program 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.

SETI needed help processing data it was receiving. Using the computers available to them, they could only keep up with the work if they just looked for the strongest signals. That could mean overlooking someone saying something on a weak signal. But SETI could never afford to purchase enough computers to really look at the data the way they wanted too. But, lots and lots of computers could do the job, and thus the idea of seti at home was born. Why not look for people who would be willing to "loan" their computers to SETI when they were not using them?

All you need is a computer and a connection to the Internet. Once you download the program and install it, it will log onto to the seti at home computer and you apply for a username. Then, your computer downloads data packages from the seti computer. If you are running windows or macs, whenever your screensaver kicks in, your computer will start processing data. When it is done (and it can take anywhere from 8 to 40 hours to process the data, it will log back into the seti computer, return the processed data and get another package. If you need to use your computer, it simply stops processing and waits until the computer is idle again and then it picks up where it left off. Just about every operating system can run seti at home. I abandoned windows long ago and run linux, a free operating system that I feel is superior, and there is a seti at home program for me as well.

What has been most interesting about the project is the response from the public. Dr David Anderson , the project director said they were overwhelmed at the response. "We got some publicity on the discovery channel one day and within hours our servers were brought to their knees with the load!" Though the program was only launched officially on May 17th of this year, there are already over 630,000 users! Clearly, lots of us want to find ET!

There have been a few problems along the way. As mentioned, the initial heavy interest overloaded the servers and lots of folks were unable to log onto the server. Lots of letters were sent complaining and Anderson said "During this time I personally have felt like 400,000 people, some of them angry, are looking over my shoulder while I program. It's quite an effective motivating force." Since those early days, Sun Microsystems, and early and dedicated supporter of SETI, have donated more high powered computers to the seti at home team. This has cleared up the busy servers. Things are running pretty smoothly and the program is still expanding.

Since the program runs when the computer is idle, you won't even know its running and it certainly won't interfere with the performance of the computer when you are using it. Unix and Linux folks can either run the program manually (I have mine run all night and when I"m away) or set up a cron job to run it during a specified time.

For more information and to download the seti@home software, click on the graphic.