Meet the SETI Project.
The SETI project is a project to search for an intelligent life outside the Earth. He was based on the experiment of an astronomer from Cornell University Frank Drake, who began to follow the radio signals coming from the stars of Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridan. On March 12, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the project, five thousand Britons are given the opportunity to send a message to extraterrestrial civilizations.
On March 12, 2010, five thousand Britons, participants of the contest organized by the organizers of the British National Week of Science and Technology and Penguin publishing house in honor of the 50th anniversary of the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), will be able to send a message to extraterrestrial civilizations.
In 1960, an astronomer from Cornell University Frank Drake began to monitor the radio signals coming from the Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridan stars, who were considered the most likely candidates for the presence of planetary terrestrial type. This experiment initiated the SETI project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), in which scientists of the world are looking for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.
Drake also created the famous formula for calculating the number of civilizations in the galaxy, with which contact is possible - the Drake equation.
The physicist Enrico Fermi, in response to a sufficiently high assessment of the chances of interplanetary contact by the Drake equation, formulated a thesis now known as the Fermi paradox: if there are so many alien extraterrestrials, why does humanity not observe any of their tracks?
The hypothesis of the unique Earth, like some other assumptions of physicists and astronomers, tries to explain the Fermi paradox. Critics of the hypothesis state, in particular, that its supporters, "carbon chauvinists", who believe that all forms of life must be built on the basis of carbon and similar to ours.
Currently, Frank Drake is director of the Center for the Study of Life in the Universe and is engaged in the search for optical signals of extraterrestrial origin, as well as the development of radio telescope projects for SETI.
In particular, his proposals were used in the construction of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California - one of the most famous projects of the movement for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and named after one of the founders of Microsoft Paul Allen.
The first 42 telescope antennas were launched in 2007, and an array of 350 antennas is supposed to be built to search for extraterrestrial life.
In the early 1960's. in the USSR in the State Astronomical Institute. PC. Sternberg (SAIH), an initiative group was formed to organize work on the search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. This idea was actively supported by outstanding physicists Viktor Ambartsumian, Yakov Zeldovich, Vladimir Kotelnikov, Igor Tamm, Semyon Khaikin and others. Then the Americans have not yet introduced the name SETI, so the Russian program was called "Project Au".
SETI developed against the backdrop of the events that the country was experiencing, from the launch of the first space satellites to the end of the twentieth century, when nascent Russian capitalism dealt a crushing blow to Russian science. Nevertheless, over 40 years we managed to do a lot. Enthusiasts of the project conducted several all-union conferences and symposia, including Soviet-American, where the Nobel laureates Francis Creek, Charles Towns and Vitaly Ginzburg came. But in addition to actively discussing the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, astrophysics conducted observations of the cosmos, mastering its greater depths. Today, technology allows you to shoot spectra of stars and view the universe in the entire range of radio emissions.
The first radio message, addressless, contained the three words "Peace, Lenin, the USSR" and went into space in 1962. In 1974, Americans from the Telescope radar in Arecibo sent their signal, which caused a storm of public indignation, after which the Americans were banned from is communication. Three subsequent messages, including international ones, were sent by the scientist of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics (IRE) of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Zaitsev from the radar telescope in Evpatoria in 1999, 2001 and 2003. They contained both digital (texts) and analog information (music) and went to several stars of the solar type. Presumably, they will reach the target for more than 30 years, as much will be a response signal to Earth.
The Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences and the SAI analyzed the entire array of open stars, which are several hundred thousand, and compiled a list of 100 closest to the star systems. Of this hundreds, 58 can clearly be SETI objects. "But all these are attempts to find a civilization similar to ours," Anatoly Cherepashchuk, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes. "Perhaps other civilizations older than us for millions of years communicate with each other with the aid of" dark matter. "Perhaps, it is the presence of dark matter and dark energy and explains the silence of the universe. "
The Planetary Society of the United States, having accumulated many years of experience in the field of radio research, decided to focus its efforts on finding and fixing light signals.