Earth occupies an ordinary region in outer space. Because life has flourished here, it could also emerge in other regions of the universe. Scientists have developed techniques to send and listen for signals that could possibly come from the other citizens of the cosmos.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI), in collaboration with the UC Berkeley Radio Astronomy Laboratories, scans and analyzes signals received from space, searching for unique radio signals potentially sent by ETs. The Allen Telescope Array, located in northern California, searches through 1,000,000 star regions for extraterrestrial intelligence signals.
The history of SETI dates back to 1960. Frank Drake, the scientist responsible for Drake’s Equation, used a radio telescope to listen to radio waves within a very small bandwidth, and analyzed the signals received as potentially originating from extraterrestrial intelligence. Today, the bandwidth of search has greatly expanded, but the program subsists mainly on private funding.
Drake’s Equation gives us an estimate of the number of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations that have not committed self-destruction, and are capable of sending radio signals into the universe. This speculative equation predicts that the universe may be rich in such civilizations.
SETI and UC Berkeley launched a volunteer program where participants use the SETI@home software to help search for extraterrestrial intelligence. As of July 2000, more than two million computers have been shared globally to help speed up the search.
