BMBF - Wissenschaftsjahr 2023

Ausschnitt einer Galaxie.

1999 - 2020: SETI@home

SETI by and for all / Citizen SETI

SETI@home refers to a participatory project in which people from all over the world could take part in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - simply by turning on their home computer. The SETI@home project was launched in 1999 and has since encouraged millions of people to participate in the search for extraterrestrial signals. It is based on the idea that the unused processing power of home computers can help to analyse the flood of data generated by radio waves received from space.

How did SETI@home work? The researchers collected radio signals from space and stored them as data on servers. However, these amounts of data were so large that it would have been impossible for the scientists to analyse them all by just themselves. That is why the SETI@home project was launched.

To participate, interested people could download and install special software. This software used the free processing power of the home computer to analyse the data received. The software divided the data into small "packages" and distributed these to participating computers around the world. The computers then looked for patterns or anomalies that could indicate possible signals from extraterrestrial civilisations. If a potentially interesting signal was detected, it was sent back to the researchers, who then examined it more closely.

Ein Laptop, der vor einem weiteren Bildschirm auf dem Tisch steht
© Pixabay

SETI@home was officially discontinued in 2020 for technical and financial reasons. Nevertheless, the project inspired and encouraged many people to become interested in exploring the universe and searching for (intelligent) extraterrestrial life.

SETI@home was a groundbreaking project pioneering the idea of grid computing and citizen science: It harnessed the power of the distributed processing power of millions of home computers and, at least in principle, everyone could participate. It helped to speed up the analysis of data and thereby increased the chances of detecting extraterrestrial signals - even if no aliens were ultimately detected. Today, large scientific institutions such as the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) still use public grid computing for their research, e.g. with their platform LHC@home.

Even though SETI@home itself is no longer active, it has shown that people around the world can work together to advance the search for alien life and explore the mysteries of the universe.

What is SETI?

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a scientific endeavour to discover extraterrestrial intelligence in the universe. SETI researchers look for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life by analysing radio signals from space. Their aim is to find signals that indicate conscious communication or technological activity beyond Earth. Using powerful telescopes and advanced signal processing techniques, SETI is trying to find answers to one of humanity's biggest questions: Are we alone in the universe or are there other intelligent civilisations out there?

In addition to searching for indicative signals, researchers in the past have deliberately sent messages and signals from Earth into space for possible extraterrestrial intelligences to receive. The active sending of these SETI messages is also known as METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence). METI is a controversial topic; the main argument against METI being that it may attract the attention of intelligent and potentially hostile extraterrestrials.