HUMBOLDT 鈥� While Brian Hay is asleep or at work, his computer quietly searches for signs of intelligent life beyond our solar system.
The Humboldt computer technician is one of over 300,000 people around the globe participating in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence with nothing more sophisticated than a home computer and Internet hookup.
鈥淭his is a real crap shoot. It's a real shot in the dark that anything will be discovered. But it just might,鈥� said Hay.
That intriguing possibility is what attracts computer users to the SETI website () to join the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at Home. Once there, anyone who has a Pentium computer with 32 megs of RAM can download a program that will allow their computer to analyze data from a 305 metre radio telescope located in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
As of last week, there were 385,173 users signed up with SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
鈥淭hey actually have more users than they expected already,鈥� said Hay, as he checks the work unit his computer is analyzing. The program operates while the computer is turned on, but isn't in use. 鈥淚t's only using your computer's spare time to do this processing, so it doesn鈥檛 interfere with anything.鈥�
The screen displays a colourful, three-dimensional graph depicting the frequencies being analyzed in that particular work unit.
"It鈥檚 looking for peaks and different things that might indicate the presence, of a signal,鈥� Hay said. 鈥淚f its strong enough and continual enough, it's an actual signal and they'll investigate further.鈥�
He compared it to turning the dial to search for signals on a radio bandwidth. SETI filters out any earth-based signals, so they don't confuse the data.
Hay鈥檚 computer has already contributed 1,000 hours of analysis to the project, which worldwide has racked up an astronomical 2,800 years worth of combined computer time since SETI's official launch of the program on May 17, 1999.
Hay was so eager to get involved he already downloaded his first work unit on May 14, 1999.
He first heard about the idea in February, when the subject popped up on an email from a NASA site he subscribes to. He and friend Bob Henderson talked about it.
鈥淲e said, 'Gee, that would be kind of neat to take part in that search. It'd be kind of fun'.鈥�
Then he forgot about it until Henderson, a teacher at Watson High School, called him in April after hearing a news report that the two-year project was a go. Henderson now has 14 computers busy analyzing data at his school.
鈥淭he chances of us being the ones to detect intelligent life in the universe is pretty slim, but somebody鈥檚 got to do it,鈥� Henderson said.
Students participate by simply clicking an icon when a work unit is complete. The program automatically sends the analysis back to SETI and downloads another chunk of raw data.
Henderson said students' reactions are varied.
"Some think it's really neat and some think it's kind of stupid," he said.
Henderson's own interest in space started when he was a teenager and watched the first moon landing on television
He confided that he'd love to do to do space travel himself, but monitoring frequencies for signs of alien life may be the next best thing.
"There's no way we're going to get out there, so we might as well just listen."
Users log on to the program with their email addresses, so if signs of intelligent life surface, SETI will know whose computer did the analysis and give credit to the discoverer.
听
Editor's note: The听Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at Home celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019.
"Our capabilities are increasing every day," the project's website said. "In 1999 it took up to a week to process a single workunit on a home PC. Now, on a machine with a GPU, it might only take a few minutes to do a far more detailed and more sensitive analysis. Who knows what the next 20 years will bring?"
