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The Search for Spock The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Life

The Search for Spock The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Life. Or Graur Student Seminar 26.03.09. 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 - 18.3 cm -> 1.64 GHz.

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The Search for Spock The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Life

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  1. The Search for SpockThe Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Life Or Graur Student Seminar 26.03.09

  2. The Drake Equation N=R*fp*ne*fl*fi*fc*L

  3. The Water Hole 1959: Morrison & Cocconi H - 21 cm -> 1.42 GHz OH - 18.3 cm -> 1.64 GHz Hipschman R., Project SERENDIP: Searching for Life in the Cosmos, What’s New in the World, 29.10.97

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

  5. The Goldilocks Region Kasting, Whitmire & Reynolds (1993)

  6. The GHZ Lineweaver, et al. (2004)

  7. The GHZ Lineweaver, et al. (2004)

  8. Phoenix: 1995-2004 • 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.”

  9. SERENDIP: 1979 - • piggybacking • Signal resolution of 0.6 Hz Sullivan, et al. (1997)

  10. 0.25 MB = 50 seconds of a 20 kHz chunk • Signal widths of 0.1-2000 Hz Sullivan, et al. (1997)

  11. Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing ~25 projects: • SETI@home • LHC@home – LHC simulations • Einstein@home – pulsar survey based on LIGO, GEO • Chess960@home • SIMAP – similarity between proteins • Rosetta@home – 3-D shape of proteins

  12. Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing • 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 • SETI@home: 2.7 million years of computer time Anderson D. P., A Million Years of Computing, talk at the Singapore National Library, May 2006

  13. Allan Telescope Array: 2007 - • Hat Creek Radio Observatory (N Cal) • Dedicated wholly to SETI • 350 6.1m antennae => S<100m2 • 0.5-11 GHz • Two paths: • non-natural signals from 105-106 stars out to 1000 lyr. • Directed message in the water hole region from 1010 stars in inner galactic plane

  14. ATA – other objectives • Classify 2.5x105 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

  15. Lick Optical SETI: 2000 - • 5,039 F,G,K,M stars out to 200 lyr. • 300-900 nm range • Search for nanosecond laser pulses • Other surveys: Leuschner, Harvard Smithsonian, Princeton, Columbus-Ohio

  16. Central Casting Syndrome

  17. Central Casting Syndrome

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

  19. Life on Mars? ALH84001 • Discovered: 27.12.84 • Shocked: 06.08.96 • “structures” 20-100 nm in diameter • Traces of amino acids and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) • Martian? Antarctic? Not biological? • Conclusive? Eh…

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

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