* Astronomy

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RE: SETI

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'No signal' from targeted ET hunt

The hunt for other intelligent civilisations has a new technique in its arsenal, but its first use has turned up no signs of alien broadcasts.
Australian astronomers used "very long baseline interferometry" to examine Gliese 581, a star known to host planets in its "habitable zone".
The hunt for aliens is fundamentally a vast numbers game, so the team's result should come as no surprise.
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Using Very Long Baseline Interferometry For SETI

This paper describes the first-ever application of the technique of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) to the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
The SETI project, born in 1960 as Project Ozma, seeks to find evidence of technological civilizations elsewhere in our cosmos. Now a private initiative supported by donations after public funding was cut by Congress, SETI aims to detect electromagnetic (EM) transmissions from extraterrestrial (ET) life. These transmissions may either be of an intentional nature (i.e. a civilization is broadcasting its existence) or leakage, e.g. radar broadcasts, radio transmissions, and the myriad other forms of radio noise a civilization like ours puts out. SETI searches across the EM spectrum for such transmissions, but its most extensive and most mature efforts are in the radio.
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Title: The First Very Long Baseline Interferometric SETI Experiment
Authors: H. Rampadarath, J. S. Morgan, S. J. Tingay, C. M. Trott

The first Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) conducted with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is presented. By consideration of the basic principles of interferometry, we show that VLBI is efficient at discriminating between SETI signals and human generated radio frequency interference (RFI). The target for this study was the star Gliese 581, thought to have two planets within its habitable zone. On 2007 June 19, Gliese 581 was observed for 8 hours at 1230-1544 with the Australian Long Baseline Array. The dataset was searched for signals appearing on all interferometer baselines above five times the noise limit. A total of 222 potential SETI signals were detected and by using automated data analysis techniques, were ruled out as originating from the Gliese 581 system. From our results we place an upper limit of 7 MW/Hz on the power output of any isotropic emitter located in the Gliese 581 system, within this frequency range. This study shows that VLBI is ideal for targeted SETI, including follow-up observations. The techniques presented are equally applicable to next-generation interferometers, such as the long baselines of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

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BOINC

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RE: SETI

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This week, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute is re-launching its website and allowing anyone to join in the quest for intelligent life on other planets.
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Alien hunters: What if ET ever phones our home?

For decades we've been sending signals - deliberate and accidental - into space. But what is the plan if one day an alien were to reply?
If we ever detect signs of intelligent alien life, the people likely to be on the receiving end of a cosmic signal are the scientists of Seti, aka Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
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First Look at Kepler SETI Data

We've started searching our Kepler SETI observations and our analyses have generated a few 'hits,' but all are undoubtedly examples of terrestrial radio frequency interference (RFI). Each of the signals below is shown in a pair of plots, one from an observation of Kepler Object of Interest (KOI) 817 and one from an observation of KOI-812. During an observation, we alternated between targets to enable us to rule out signals seen coming from two different places in the sky. If we see a signal coming from multiple positions on the sky, like the ones below, it is very likely to be interference.
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US military pays SETI to check Kepler-22b for aliens

The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has announced that it is back in business checking out the new habitable exoplanets recently discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope to see if they might be home to alien civilisations. The cash needed to restart SETI's efforts has come in part from the US Air Force Space Command, who are interested in using the organisation's detection instruments for "space situational awareness".
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