SETI@home

From BOINC

SETI@home

Institution	Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, with support from Sun Microsystems, the Planetary Society, and others
Status	Active
Official Launch	17 May 1999
Platforms	Mac OS X, Linux/x86, Mac OS X (PowerPC), SPARC Solaris, SPARC Solaris 2.7, Windows, Linux/x64
Web Site	http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

SETI@home searches through data from the radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, looking for narrow-bandwidth radio signals which might be taken as evidence of extraterrestrial technology. (SETI stands for Search for Extra-Terestrial Intelligence.)

Radio telescope signals consist primarily of noise (from celestial sources and the receiver's electronics) and man-made signals such as TV stations, radar, and satellites. Modern radio SETI projects analyze the data digitally. More computing power enables searches to cover greater frequency ranges with more sensitivity. Radio SETI, therefore, has an insatiable appetite for computing power.