SETI Program
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SETI Program
Bertrand Russell wrote, “There are two possibilities. Maybe we are alone.
Maybe we are not. Both are equally frightening (Jakosky 1).” The question of
life in the universe is one that leaves many in a state of bewilderment. It
becomes even more interesting when it leads to another question – that of
intelligent life in the universe. Finding other intelligent civilizations among
the interstellar space would greatly affect every aspect of our existence.
Conversely, not finding such a civilization would force us to examine the
purpose of our own existence. To help answer the question, astronomers and
scientists set up a program in search for extraterrestrial intelligence. This
program, or SETI, was set up to verify, by observation that extraterrestrial
life does exist. SETI tries to prove this by picking up and analyzing radio
signals by means of satellites and advanced computers (Heidmann 116). The
history of the SETI program is quite interesting. It started back in 1959 with
the help of two famous Cornell University physicists, Guiseppi Cocconi and Phil
Morrison. Both claimed that it would be possible to communicate with other
potential extraterrestrial life in space by the use of techniques used in radio
astronomy (Heidmann 112). Together, they voiced their belief that if other
“alien astronomers” elsewhere in the universe possessed radio telescopes,
that it would be possible to converse between the two (Heidmann 112-113). A
young astronomer by the name of Francis Drake agreed with the theories of
Cocconi and Morrison. He proposed building a radio receiver in order to listen
for waves of sound being transmitted through space. It wasn’t until the spring
of 1960 that Drake began his first project of SETI, Ozma. In this project, he
was the first to conduct a search for signals transmitted from other solar
systems. For two tedious months, Drake pointed an eighty-five foot antenna in
the direction of two starts the same age as our sun, Tau Ceti and Epsil. A
single 100Hz-channel receiver scanned nearly 400kHz of bandwidth, for a repeated
series of patterned pulses that would indicate an intelligent message (Heidmann
113-144). Unfortunately, the only sound that came from the speaker was static.
Though no intelligent life was found and project Ozma proved to be nothing but a
disappointment, it actually spurred the interest of others who created a
feasible scientific objective (“Project Ozma”). In the 1960’s the Soviet
Union dominated much of the SETI...
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