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Science Blog ZINC PROJECTS

SETI@home looking for more volunteers

Date: 05-Jan-08
Author: University of California-Berkeley

The longest-running search for radio signals from alien civilizations is getting a burst of new data from an upgraded Arecibo telescope, which means the SETI@home project needs more desktop computers to help crunch the data.

Since SETI@home launched eight years ago, the project based at the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory has signed up more than 5 million interested volunteers and boasts the largest community of dedicated users of any Internet computing project: 170,000 devotees on 320,000 computers.

Yet, new and more sensitive receivers on the world's largest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and better frequency coverage are generating 500 times more data for the project than before. The SETI@home software has been upgraded to deal with this new data as the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) enters a new era and offers a new opportunity for those who want to help find other civilizations in the universe.

The 305-meter (1000-feet) diameter radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world. The remote sensing satellite IKONOS collected this image on 7 Jan. 2002 from an orbital altitude of 681 km. Courtesy: GeoEye

Full story: SETI@home looking for more volunteers