SETI@home Help in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence from your PC.

rikrd3 (53)in #extraterrestrial • 5 years ago (edited)

Is there intelligent extraterrestrial life? It is a question to which we still have no answers, but you can help solve this riddle by using the power of your PC when it is not in use, this is possible thanks to the SETI@home project created by the agency SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) under the sponsorship of NASA.

What is SETI@home?

It is a distributed computing project developed by the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California at Berkeley (United States). His intention is to examine radio signals for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Classic client of SETI@home Source

SETI@home was launched on May 17, 1999 making it one of the largest projects of large-scale use of distributed computing over the Internet for research purposes.

How does it work?

Aerial view of the Arecibo radio telescope. Source

It all starts at the Arecibo observatory, with its radio telescope dish, surrounded by the tropical forests of Puerto Rico, this satellite dish captures radio signals on the frequency of hydrogen, which is the most abundant element in the universe. This radio frequency crosses without problems atmospheres, galaxies, clouds of gas and dust, so discovering a regular pattern on this frequency would be a clear signal that someone is sending information intentionally.

These signals from space are processed at the University of Berkeley and distributed in small packages of 2 minutes of recording to volunteers from around the world who use their personal computers to examine the signals in order to check if any of them is found any sign that can be of an intelligent entity.

The use of the program is very simple, it has two modalities, you can use it as a screensaver to use the power of your PC only when you do not use it or you can activate it in continuous use for the most enthusiastic.

Screensaver activated SETI@Home Source

Installation:

Go to the homepage of SETI@home and download the software. The file has approximately 800 kilobytes, so it does not take long to download.
Install the software. It takes about 30 seconds This is one of the easiest installations ever seen!
Log in and choose which mode you want to activate, screensaver or continue. In addition you will be able to see statistics of your participation.

Visit the official website of the project SETI@home.