In 2003, Radio source SHGb02 + 14a was isolated by SETI @ home analysis, although it has largely been discounted by further study.

Screen shot of the screensaver for SETI @ home, a distributed computing project in which volunteers donate idle computer power to analyze radio signals for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence

SETI @ home logo

Any individual can become involved with SETI research by downloading the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing ( BOINC ) software program, attaching to the SETI @ home project, and allowing the program to run as a background process that uses idle computer power.

The SETI @ home program itself runs signal analysis on a " work unit " of data recorded from the central 2. 5 MHz wide band of the SERENDIP IV instrument.

After computation on the work unit is complete, the results are then automatically reported back to SETI @ home servers at UC Berkeley.

As of June 28, 2009 the SETI @ home project has over 180, 000 active participants volunteering a total of over 290, 000 computers.

These computers give SETI @ home an average computational power of 617 teraFLOPS.

As of 2010, after 10 years of data collection, SETI @ home has listened to that one frequency at every point of over 67 percent of the sky observable from Arecibo with a least 3 scans ( out of the goal of 9 scans ), which covers about 20 percent of the full celestial sphere.

Although other volunteering projects such as Zooniverse credit users for discoveries, there is currently no crediting or early notification by SETI @ Home following the discovery of a signal.

* SETI @ home

If a virus is detected, the window turns red and the scan is stopped, and the alert is shown once you exit the screensaver ) or a distributed computing application ( such as the SETI @ home project ).

* SETI @ home, a distributed computing project

The telescope received additional recognition in 1999 when it began to collect data for the SETI @ home project.

SETI @ home, the largest distributed computing experiment on Earth, is perhaps the Society's best-known SETI project.

* SETI @ home

The main active competition is the RoboRumble @ Home, a continuous league based on distributed computation in a similar way to SETI @ Home.

SETI @ home (" SETI at home ") is an Internet-based public volunteer computing project employing the BOINC software platform, hosted by the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States.

SETI @ home was released to the public on May 17, 1999, making it the second large-scale use of distributed computing over the Internet for research purposes, as Distributed. net was launched in 1997.

The two original goals of SETI @ home were:

The current BOINC environment, a development of the original SETI @ home, is providing support for many computationally intensive projects in a wide range of disciplines.

Cyclops was not built, but the report formed the basis of much SETI work that followed.

After field tests that lasted into 1982, Suitcase SETI was put into use in 1983 with the 26-meter Harvard / Smithsonian radio telescope at Harvard, Massachusetts.

Even 131, 000 channels weren't enough to search the sky in detail at a fast rate, so Suitcase SETI was followed in 1985 by Project " META ", for " Megachannel Extra-Terrestrial Assay ".

In 1978, the NASA SETI program was heavily criticized by Senator William Proxmire, and funding for SETI research was removed from the NASA budget by Congress in 1981, however, funding was restored in 1982, after Carl Sagan talked with Proxmire and convinced him of the program's value.

Project Argus was conceived as a continuation of the all-sky survey component of the late NASA SETI program ( the targeted search having been continued by the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix ).

In the SETI context, the name has been used for radio telescopes in fiction ( Arthur C. Clarke, " Imperial Earth "; Carl Sagan, " Contact "), was the name initially used for the NASA study ultimately known as " Cyclops ," and is the name given to an omnidirectional radio telescope design being developed at the Ohio State University.

In response, SETI advocates note, among other things, that the Drake Equation was never a hypothesis, and so never intended to be testable, nor to be " solved "; it was merely a clever representation of the agenda for the world's first scientific SETI meeting in 1961, and it serves as a tool in formulating testable hypotheses.

The concern over SETI was raised by the science journal Nature in an editorial in October 2006, which commented on a recent meeting of the International Academy of Astronautics SETI study group.

The most optimistic search project to date was Project Ozma, which was intended to " search for extraterrestrial intelligence " ( SETI ) by examining selected stars for indications of artificial radio signals.

Until his death in 1996, the Society was actively led by Sagan, who used his celebrity and political clout to influence the political climate of the time, including protecting SETI in 1981 from congressional cancellation.

A new strategy in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence ( SETI ) was proposed by American space scientist William I. McLaughlin in 1977.

* 1977 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space ; the event is named the " Wow!

Radio telescope s are often used by SETI projects

Some of the most well known projects are run by Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley and the SETI Institute.

The United States government contributed to early SETI projects, but recent work has been primarily funded by private sources.

The OSU SETI program gained fame on August 15, 1977 when Jerry Ehman, a project volunteer, witnessed a startlingly strong signal received by the telescope.

SETI advocates continued without government funding, and in 1995 the nonprofit SETI Institute of Mountain View, California resurrected the MOP program under the name of Project " Phoenix ", backed by private sources of funding.

As various SETI projects have progressed, some have criticized early claims by researchers as being too " euphoric " or " optimistic.

SETI has also occasionally been the target of criticism by those who suggest that it is a form of pseudoscience.

In Skeptical Inquirer, Mark Moldwin argued that the important differences between the two projects were the acceptance of SETI by the mainstream scientific community and that " he methodology of SETI leads to useful scientific results even in the absence of discovery of alien life.