Bettymaya Foott/National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Bettymaya Foott/National Radio Astronomy Observatory
At the turn of the century, 3.8 million people banded together in a real-time search for aliens — with screensavers. The project was called SETI@home. The hope was that with the power of millions of computers, researchers could comb through radio signals hitting Earth from outer space to find a hint of something unusual.
“I hijacked my parent’s little Gateway 2000, and I absolutely cooked it trying to contribute to what seemed like the thing … the one opportunity, living in the middle of nowhere … I can be part of this journey that humankind is on,” recalls University of Washington astronomer James Davenport. “It was amazing.”
Now an astronomy professor at the University of Washington, Davenport is still enthralled by the search. He collaborates with the SETI Institute, a nonprofit research organization that combs through astronomical data in search of signs of life outside of Earth.
For decades, SETI has worked with astronomers and space enthusiasts to look for spikes, chirps, unusual things in radio signals and so far haven’t found anything conclusive.
In 2012, Jill Tarter, one of the organization’s founders, told NPR that, “the amount of searching that we’ve done in 50 years is equivalent to scooping one 8-ounce glass out of the Earth’s ocean.” Davenport says that sample size is about to get a whole lot bigger thanks to technological advancements like the Vera Rubin telescope being built in Chile.
The telescope’s camera is the largest in the world — about the size of a small car. It’s expected to push the sample size of stars up, from about a billion or two, to more than ten billion. Which is good news for all of astronomy, not just the search for extraterrestrial life. “That’s a total transformational shift. It’s going to be something that really is a tide that raises all the sort of astronomical boats we’re going to see,” says Davenport. “We’re going to see the binary stars in the supernova. We’re going to double the known number of asteroids and comets in the solar system in the first year.”
But even if all this new data yields nothing, Davenport is not deterred. For him, the hunt is also about leaving a legacy for future scientists.
“Our data is forever. … So a star that doesn’t do anything that seemed boring to us for 10 years? 25 years from now, it might do something interesting,” says Davenport. “If we don’t have that record, if we don’t do our work, then they don’t stand a chance of finding anything.”
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This episode was produced by Berly McCoy and edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts and Jimmy Keeley was the audio engineer.
