1 / 20

The Search for Spock The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Dive into the scientific quest for extraterrestrial life with SETI projects, historical discoveries, and ongoing research. Learn about radio telescopes, the Goldilocks Zone, and the latest findings in the search for life beyond Earth.

ross-burris
Download Presentation

The Search for Spock The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Life

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  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)

More Related