The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program wants you to help look for space invaders. In its hunt for alien data streams, the group is developing software and a Web site that could save money by letting netizens analyze radio signals on home computers.
By year's end, the SETI@home project, based at the University of California at Berkeley, hopes to test a site where users can download a plug-in screensaver and a chunk of telescope data from the skies. The application would crunch numbers in the background while the home user was asleep or at the keyboard.
"We're not going to know the answer to this question unless we listen, unless we do the research," said Dan Werthimer, program director of SETI and a former astronomy and computer professor at San Francisco State University. "The universe is extremely likely to be teeming with life. You can argue all day, but unless you do the search you will never know."
A paper released in June by Stanford University researchers acknowledged that further UFO study might not be such a bad idea.
The SETI project has used radio signals collected from the world's biggest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, for the past six years. The apparatus is about 1,000 feet in diameter, large enough to hold 10 billion bowls of cornflakes, said Werthimer.
SETI uses the telescope on the cheap. While other scientists are scanning the skies, SETI piggybacks by putting its receiver under one of the telescope's multiple focal points. The group extracts a limited frequency band of the signal, samples it, and writes it to a digital tape. The data is then analyzed to see if any unusual signals or patterns appear in the spectrum. SETI's software searches for strong signals at 4 million different combinations of frequency, bandwidth, and chirp (the drift in frequency with time).
Expensive supercomputers analyze the data, and it's a costly proposition, about $200,000 a year by Werthimer's estimate. The program relies on private donations and funding from the SETI Institute (a separate entity), which has received checks from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. More recently, the SETI program received a matching grant from the Pasadena, California-based Planetary Society, a nonprofit space interest group founded by Carl Sagan. Computer maker Sun Microsystems donated workstations to the project, but SETI still lacks the computing power to efficiently analyze the endless amounts of space data.
That's where you -- and the SETI@home -- project come in.
Like crypto-cracking efforts that use distributed computing -- computers linked through the Internet -- SETI will try to patch together the collective computing power of individual users worldwide. With a 28.8 Kbps modem, users can download "a piece of the sky," about a quarter megabyte of data.
The program runs for about two days, and if anything suspicious is detected, the user sends it back to SETI for scientists to take a closer look. SETI hopes to complete five detailed analyses of the entire sky within two years. SETI@home already has 115,000 volunteers signed up and awaiting their software.
The Center for Electronic Art in San Francisco has helped with the SETI@home Web site. Students in an intensive 10-day design workshop developed a prototype Web site. Although the class ended Friday, volunteers at the center plan to continue work on the site.
"[The people at SETI] are nerds, total geeks, so brilliant in science, but have no clue when it comes to the public," said Harold Hedelman, executive director at the center. "But there's no question. It's good science."
Earlier this month, the SETI Institute announced a public-relations effort of its own: Elliott, Dickens will help with fund raising and spreading the word about SETI research through a media blitz spanning print, television, and the Net.
The Berkeley SETI program is also using volunteers à la Netscape's Mozilla project. David Anderson, project director and a former member of Berkeley's Computer Science faculty, has posted information about the analysis software he wrote and is recruiting help. About 40 developers are working to improve SETI's program. "We are asking programmers to help us make it look sexy," said Werthimer.
Earthlings are constantly sending out broadcasts into space. The Ed Sullivan Show and other broadcasts about 50 years old have gone past 10,000 stars, said Werthimer. "The hope is that other civilizations out there will also send out stuff, [from things like] navigational beacons, asteroid-tracking radar," he said. He added, "I think earthlings are just getting in the game."
Will the SETI@home effort spook people or attract a slew of volunteers? At least one skeptical Center for Electronic Art participant has been converted.
"I came here to learn multimedia," said Stacey Pope, a ninth-grade art teacher from Syracuse, New York. "When I first found out about the SETI program, I thought it was a hoax ... but I'm getting hooked.
"I can't wait to show [my students] all this. It's real science. Once they hook teachers and classrooms, they will get a lot of publicity."
