The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a collaboration of people and activities whose goal is to search for and contact extra-terrestrial (ET) life. When you hear SETI, most people think of the Allen Telescope Array, a collections of 42 twenty foot wide radio dishes that are constantly searching for radio signals emitted by ET (pictured above). Astronomers figure that if ET is at least as smart as we human are, they would have figured out that radio waves can travel very far distances without being disrupted by buildings (or stars, from an outer space point of view). This is why radio waves are used to transmit music to your car. They can hold data and travel far distances without being disrupted. Astronomers think that if ET wants to communicate with us, they will send radio signals into space. In theory, we would receive these radio signals at earth, and be able to decode whatever message was contained in them. Hopefully they are friendly!
It's not quite as easy as it sounds because there are many things in the universe, besides aliens, that emit radio waves. So removing all the "noise" and discovering an alien signal is no easy task. But SETI has been working on this since the 1970's.
Sadly they are currently lacking the funding to continue running their telescopes, and are desperately looking for rich people to donate money…. Too bad I'm not rich! Hopefully someone will come along and assist with the funds so we can continue to search for aliens!
Stay tuned to learn about messages we've sent to aliens into space, what SETI has found, and how you can help SETI find aliens, without shelling out millions of dollars!
Image credit: SETI
