SETI@home Prepares to Revisit its Best Signals

[Balandar]

From : http://www.planetary.org/html....02.html

A Special Day at Arecibo

Sometime early in 2003 the giant radio telescope at Arecibo will take a day off from its normal astronomical duties. For 24 hours it will devote all of its immense observational capacity to a single goal: searching for steady repeating signals from space, the telltale signs of intelligent transmissions.

Needless to say, SETI research at Arecibo is not limited to that one single day. The SETI@home receiver, mounted 500 feet above the enormous dish, scans the skies throughout the year in search of intelligent transmission. On most days, however, the receiver sits passively on its perch, and scans whichever part of the sky the telescope happens to point to. Over time, the receiver covers the entire celestial band visible from Arecibo. It can never, however, go back and listen attentively to a particular promising signal, and determine whether it might possible be an intelligent transmission.

This, however, is precisely what the radio telescope will do on that special day. Rather than searching the vastness of space at random, it will focus its attention on a list of 100 most promising locations, handed to the telescope operators by SETI@home scientists. All of these are locations in the sky where SETI@home had detected radio signals at least twice before.

Read more at http://www.planetary.org/html....02.html

[Elathiel]

Very very interseting read. Thanks for the news