DiscoverScroll article

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (usually shortened as SETI) is the diverse efforts and scientific projects intended to detect extraterrestrial signals, or any evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.

Researchers use methods such as monitoring electromagnetic radiation, searching for optical signals, and investigating potential extraterrestrial artifacts for any signs of transmission from civilizations present on other planets. Modern SETI research began in the early 20th century after the advent of radio, expanding with projects like Project Ozma, the Wow! signal detection, and the Breakthrough Listen initiative; a $100 million, 10-year attempt to detect signals from nearby stars, announced in 2015 by Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner. Since the 1980s, international efforts have been ongoing, with community led projects such as SETI@home and Project Argus, engaging in analyzing data. While SETI remains a respected scientific field, it often gets compared to conspiracy theory, UFO research, bringing unwarranted skepticism from the public, despite its reliance on rigorous scientific methods and verifiable data and research. Similar studies on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) such as Avi Loeb's Galileo Project have brought further attention to SETI research. Despite decades of searching, no confirmed evidence of alien intelligence has been found, bringing criticism onto SETI for being 'overly hopeful'. Critics argue that SETI is speculative and unfalsifiable, while supporters see it as a crucial step in addressing the Fermi paradox and understanding extraterrestrial technosignature.

There have been many earlier searches for extraterrestrial intelligence within the Solar System.

In 1960, Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake performed the first modern SETI experiment, named "Project Ozma" after the Queen of Oz in L. Soviet astronomer Iosif Shklovsky wrote the pioneering book in the field, Universe, Life, Intelligence (1962), which was expanded upon by American astronomer Carl Sagan as the best-selling book Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966). Dubbed the Wow! signal, it is considered by some to be the best candidate for a radio signal from an artificial, extraterrestrial source ever discovered, but it has not been detected again in several additional searches. On 24 May 2023, a test extraterrestrial signal, in the form of a "coded radio signal from Mars", was transmitted to radio telescopes on Earth, according to a report in The New York Times.

SETI Institute's Center for SETI Research (CSR) uses ATA in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, observing 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. ATA is well suited to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and to discovery of astronomical radio sources, such as heretofore unexplained non-repeating, possibly extragalactic, pulses known as fast radio bursts or FRBs.

SERENDIP (Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations) is a SETI program launched in 1979 by the Berkeley SETI Research Center.

Project Argus was conceived as a continuation of the all-sky survey component of the late NASA SETI program (the targeted search having been continued by the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix).

The possibility of using interstellar messenger probes in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence was first suggested by Ronald N.

Technosignatures, including all signs of technology, are a recent avenue in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Active SETI, also known as messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence (METI), consists of sending signals into space in the hope that they will be detected by an alien intelligence.

In an attempt to present the search for extraterrestrial intelligence within a broader historical context, Lewis White Beck at the University of Rochester traced its development within the works of several philosophers of the Western tradition including: Lucretius, Plutarch, Aristotle, Copernicus, Immanuel Kant, John Wilkins, Charles Darwin and Karl Marx.

The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Phillip Morrison, John Billingham, & John Wolfe: The search for extraterrestrial intelligence—SETI. Swift: Seti Pioneers: Scientists Talk about Their Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Frank White: The Seti Factor: How the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Is Changing Our View of the Universe and Ourselves.

Quick Facts

• Active SETI, also known as messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence (METI), consists of sending signals into space in the hope that they will be detected by an alien intelligence.
• SERENDIP (Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations) is a SETI program launched in 1979 by the Berkeley SETI Research Center.
• Swift: Seti Pioneers: Scientists Talk about Their Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
• SETI Institute's Center for SETI Research (CSR) uses ATA in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, observing 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Researchers use methods such as monitoring electromagnetic radiation, searching for optical signals, and investigating potential extraterrestrial artifacts for any signs of transmission from civilizations present on other planets.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Search for extraterrestrial intelligence". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.