A 21-year Search for Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life Has Ended Without Finding Any Aliens
Article by Jasper Hamill March 4, 2020 (metro.co.uk)
• For 21 years, the University of California, Berkeley, has run a project called SETI@Home which allowed ordinary people to use their computer’s processing power to help scan deep space in search of alien civilizations. Now this ambitious crowdsourced effort has been closed down as the scientists have analyzed all of the data they need for now, and it’s reached ‘the point of diminishing returns’. “We’re extremely grateful to all of our volunteers for supporting us in many ways during the past 20 years.”
• On Twitter, UC Berkeley’s SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) department wrote: “Thanks to the many volunteers who have helped crunch data for SETI@home in the last two decades.” As of March 31st, the project will stop sending out new work to users. But “Stay tuned…. We have some exciting new ways for the public to contribute to SETI@Berkeley that we will announce in the near future.”
• Earlier this year, scientists at the SETI Institute announced that they are developing state-of-the-art techniques to detect ‘technosignatures’ in space which indicate the presence of alien civilizations. These are ‘detectable indicators’ such as large amounts of oxygen, smaller amounts of methane, and a variety of other chemicals. They plan to develop a system that will ‘piggyback’ on the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope based in New Mexico.
• Dr Tony Beasley, director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) telescope based in Virginia, US, said, “Determining whether we are alone in the universe – as technologically capable life – is among the most compelling questions in science.” “[T]his new system will allow for an additional and important use for the data we’re already collecting.”
• Victoria Meadows, principal investigator for Nasa’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory at the University of Washington, which studies to detect exoplanetary habitability, said, “Upcoming telescopes in space and on the ground will have the capability to observe the atmospheres of Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby cool stars, so it’s important to understand how best to recognize signs of habitability and life on these planets.” “These computer models will help us determine whether an observed planet is more or less likely to support life.”
• SETI’s ‘Breakthrough Listen Initiative’, which launched in 2015 to ‘listen’ for signals of alien life, has released the most comprehensive survey yet of radio emissions from the plane of the Milky Way galaxy and the central black hole. The Initiative is now inviting the public to search the data, gathered from various telescopes around the world, to look for signals from intelligent civilizations.
• [Editor’s Note] SETI’s ongoing “search” for extraterrestrial intelligence reminds me of Macbeth’s soliloquy: “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” When the truth is finally revealed that our leaders have been aware of the presence of extraterrestrial beings and alien civilizations for decades, SETI will slink away and hope that the public forgets that it spent millions of dollars trying NOT to find alien life, to support the deep state in hiding the truth.
Volunteers have spent the past two decades helping scientists to search for alien civilisations.
Now this ambitious crowdsourced effort has ended – but we’re still no closer to finding extraterrestrial life.
For 21 years, the University of California, Berkeley, has run a project called SETI@Home which allowed ordinary people to use their computer’s processing power to help scan deep space in search of aliens.
But this project has now been closed down without managing to answer the question of the universe is teeming with life or depressingly barren.
On Twitter, UC Berkeley’s SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) department wrote: ‘Thanks to the many volunteers who have helped crunch data for SETI@home in the last two decades.
‘On March 31, the project will stop sending out new work to users, but this is not the end of public engagement in SETI research.
‘Stay tuned…. We have some exciting new ways for the public to contribute to SETI@Berkeley that we will announce in the near future.’
The project was shut down because it had reached ‘the point of diminishing returns’.
‘Basically, we’ve analyzed all the data we need for now,’ scientists wrote.
‘We’re extremely grateful to all of our volunteers for supporting us in many ways during the past 20 years.
‘Without you, there would be no SETI@home. We’re excited to finish up our original science project, and we look forward to what comes next.’
Earlier this year scientists at the SETI Institute, an organisation dedicated to finding extraterrestrial life, said they are developing state-of-the-art techniques to detect ‘technosignatures’ in space which indicate the presence of alien civilisations.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.