SETI: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Quiz

Answer: Project OZMA

A radio telescope was set up at Green Bank, West Virginia. The two-month project listened on an 84ft (26m) foot Tatel Telescope. The project quickly realized that a method was needed to eliminate local emissions and erected a second receiver. Alas, no extraterrestrial sounds were detected.

Answer: Little Green Man 1 (LGM-1)

Bell was a PhD student at Cambridge University and studying quasars (quasi-stellar radio sources) when she observed rhythmic blips. Observations continued until the same signal was found from another source. Eventually it was determined that the signals came from rotating neutron stars.

The neutron stars are remnants of supernova explosions. As they rotate beams of light and radio waves are emitted. These are now called "pulsars".

Answer: Ohio Sky Survey

The Big Ear was the nickname for the Ohio State University Radio Observatory. From 1965-1971, the observatory ran the Ohio Sky Survey. The "Wow! Signal" was recorded in 1977 by Jerry R. Ehman. The signal has not been detected since, though folks have listened.

The observatory land was sold and the radio telescope dissembled in 1998.

Answer: SERENDIP

The SERENDIP (Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations) program "piggy-backs" on astronomers' use of radio telescopes to analyze the data captured.

Because of the need for many calculations, and the dearth of computing power, SETI@home was developed as a volunteer computing project. Volunteers download a free program to their computer and the data is downloaded and analyzed either while a screen-saver is running, or while the user is on the computer. There are millions of computers used for analyzing the data.

Answer: Suitcase SETI

Paul Horowitz developed the portable Suitcase SETI in the early 1980s. In 1982 it was connected to the Arecibo radio telescope, located in a large karst sinkhole in Puerto Rico.

The Suitcase SETI was then reconfigured by Horowitz and used in Project Sentinel. This project was an all-sky search from 1983 to 1985. Improvements were made and Project META (Megachannel ExtraTerrestrial Assay) was launched from 1985-1994. META was superseded in turn by Project BETA (Billion-channel ExtraTerrestrial Assay).

Answer: HRMS

After years of efforts, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was finally given funding in 1992 to begin SETI research by scanning ten million frequencies. Originally called MOP (Microwave Observing Project), the official name was changed to HRMS (High Resolution Microwave Survey). The project started on October 12, 1992, but was killed less than a year later by Senator Richard Bryan. His press release stated in part, "This hopefully will be the end of Martian hunting season at the taxpayer's expense".

The SETI Institute took up the project, renamed Project Phoenix, with private funding.

Answer: Project Argus

When the NASA funding was cut off, the SETI League was established by Richard Factor. Shuch was the first Executive Director. Shuch also tours as Dr. SETI(r), entertaining audiences with science and always asking "Are we alone?"

The project began in 1996 with five operational telescopes. The final goal is 5000, which will allow all-sky viewing when properly coordinated.

Answer: Invitation to ETI

With the hope that any Extraterrestrial Intelligence would be able to probe our Internet, the "Invitation to ETI" invites them to contact "Earthlings" via the Internet. The belief is that any aliens out there are not malevolent (if they were they would have already attacked).

Answer: ATA

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is actually a Large Number of Small Dishes (LNSD) array designed to capture data simultaneously and then combine and analyze the signals. The original plan was to build a One Hectare Telescope (the name was changed to honor Paul Allen for his donation which made starting possible) in four phases. The first phase of 42 telescopes went on-line in 2007.

Answer: Breakthrough Initatives

A 2015 announcement at London's Royal Society signaled the start of Breakthrough Initiatives: Breakthrough Listen, Breakthrough Message, and Breakthrough Starshot. This ten year program is funded by Yuri Milner.

Breakthrough Listen will utilize the radio telescopes at Green Bank Observatory in West Virgina and the Parkes Observatory in Australia.

Breakthrough Message is about communications sent into space. A prize pool of one million US dollars, open to everyone, was established to design the appropriate message.

The Breakthrough Starshot was initiated to develop a light sail spacecraft.