November 03, 2007

SETI: Sounds like a four letter word which might not mean any thing but it’s just not a word, it’s a world for many people — one of the largest research programmes in this world today, the largest array of radio telescopes in the world, the largest cluster of computers in the world calculating data. But what does SETI mean? What does it stand for? SETI is an abbreviation of Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. A research programme conducting the most sophisticated and biggest research in the history of mankind to know our beginning and our place among stars and universe at large.

SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, is a research and exploratory scientific project which seeks life in the universe by looking for some signs or any minute sign of technology from outer space. Human beings’ current understanding of life’s origin i.e. how life originated on earth gave rise to the thought that under the same conditions, life can also survive on other planets under suitable environment and sufficient time. It’s another debate whether evaluation will give rise to the intelligent and technologically advanced civilisation or not.

However, any such civilisation can exist across the distances between the stars and galaxies. This research may offer us the best opportunity to discover extraterrestrial life in the near future.

Finding evidence of other technological civilisation is neither easy nor inexpensive. It requires scientific and technological efforts which contributed greatly in computer processing methodology and technology.

Currently the Centre of SETI Research in California, USA is developing more advanced signal processing technology and using it to search for signals from advanced technological civilisations in our galaxy.

SETI is a research programme, open for all who have a computer and access to the Internet. We can contribute just by providing a very little processing power of our computer which we are not using most of the time to the SETI server. But how is it possible? It’s simple, go to http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ download and attach the software, and whenever you are online, you will be contributing in the greatest scientific research of the world and will be a part of history.

In the past, SETI scientist have received many signals from out of space, which might prove that we are not alone in the universe, or they might be just random signals resulting from cosmological events in our universe. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope someone like us is out there.