The Search for Spock The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Life Or Graur Student Seminar

The Drake Equation N=R*f p *n e *f l *f i *f c *L

The Water Hole 1959: Morrison & Cocconi H - 21 cm -> 1.42 GHz OH cm -> 1.64 GHz Hipschman R., Project SERENDIP: Searching for Life in the Cosmos, What ’ s New in the World,

Project OZMA: 1960  Two G stars: Epsilon Eridani & Tau Ceti  1420 Mhz  85 ft radio telescope at Green Bank  150 hours  nada

The Goldilocks Region Kasting, Whitmire & Reynolds (1993)

The GHZ Lineweaver, et al. (2004)

The GHZ Lineweaver, et al. (2004)

Phoenix:  Parkes 64m + Mopra 22m (Australia)  Green Bank 140ft + Woodbury (USA)  Arecibo (Puerto Rico)  800 G-type stars out to 200 lyr.  1-3 Mhz region, 1Hz resolution  Conclusion: “ We live in a quiet neighborhood. ”

SERENDIP: #channelsPhase 100I 65KII 4MIII 168MIV  piggybacking  Signal resolution of 0.6 Hz Sullivan, et al. (1997)

 0.25 MB = 50 seconds of a 20 kHz chunk  Signal widths of Hz Sullivan, et al. (1997)

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing ~25 projects:   – LHC simulations  – pulsar survey based on LIGO, GEO   SIMAP – similarity between proteins  – 3-D shape of proteins

 680,000 participants in 245 countries  1,000,000 computers  400 TeraFLOPS (more than IBM ’ s 2006 supercomputer BlueGene)  12 Petabytes of free disk space  2.7 million years of computer time Anderson D. P., A Million Years of Computing, talk at the Singapore National Library, May 2006 Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing

Allan Telescope Array:  Hat Creek Radio Observatory (N Cal)  Dedicated wholly to SETI  m antennae => S S<100m 2  GHz  Two paths: non-natural signals from stars out to 1000 lyr.non-natural signals from stars out to 1000 lyr. Directed message in the water hole region from stars in inner galactic planeDirected message in the water hole region from stars in inner galactic plane

ATA – other objectives  Classify 2.5x10 5 extragalactic radio sources as either AGN or starburst galaxies.  Gravitational lens candidates for dark matter/energy detection.  Metallicity in the Milky Way  Radio transients  And much, much more

Lick Optical SETI:  5,039 F,G,K,M stars out to 200 lyr.  nm range  Search for nanosecond laser pulses  Other surveys: Leuschner, Harvard Smithsonian, Princeton, Columbus-Ohio

Central Casting Syndrome

Life on Mars? Canals 1877: Giovanni Schiaparelli (1877)

Life on Mars? ALH84001  Discovered:  Shocked:  “ structures ” nm in diameter  Traces of amino acids and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons)  Martian? Antarctic? Not biological?  Conclusive? Eh …

Life on Mars? Methane! Mumma, et al. (2009)