SETI: What would it take to monitor all probable bands.

In summary, SETI's current monitoring of RF is a noble cause (in my opinion). How can we hope to discover other intelligent life if we don't listen? But as I understand it, it is sort of pathetic in terms of the handful of frequencies they actually monitor. So this lead me to these questions: What would it take to monitor all practical bands of the EMS coming from all directions around Earth. Say if we wanted to be able to pick up any reasonably strong signal from within a 50 light-year sphere around us? It would require a massive amount of equipment, but how much roughly would it take? And perhaps more importantly, how much computing power would it take to search all that data for hints of
  • #1
Taremos
8
0
SETI's current monitoring of RF is a noble cause (in my opinion). How can we hope to discover other intelligent life if we don't listen?

But as I understand it, it is sort of pathetic in terms of the handful of frequencies they actually monitor. So this lead me to these questions:

What would it take to monitor all practical bands of the EMS coming from all directions around Earth. Say if we wanted to be able to pick up any reasonably strong signal from within a 50 light-year sphere around us? "Reasonably strong" is not an exact number, and I don't know enough about the subject to present a number, but let's say if we broadcasted a TV show from one of our satellites into space instead of towards Earth.

We can't monitor everyone at once simultaneously (can we?), so let's say we want to scan for every frequency within that sphere once per year.

It would require a massive amount of equipment, but how much roughly would it take?

And perhaps more importantly, how much computing power would it take to search all that data for hints of an intelligent broadcast?
 
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  • #2
Rough estimate - Seti@Home is looking at 0.01% of the frequency band space times sky space. So it would have to be 10,000x larger to do a search like you describe. This would certainly require many more telescopes.

Presently, Seti@Home uses 1.8M personal computers. This would have to grow to 18B. At $500 a pop, that's $9T. That dominates the cost: ALMA will build of order 60 telescopes for a billion dollars, so if you needed 1000 or even 10000, the dominant cost is computing. $9T is approximately the entire economic output of the United States for a year.
 
  • #3
Vanadium 50 said:
Rough estimate - Seti@Home is looking at 0.01% of the frequency band space times sky space. So it would have to be 10,000x larger to do a search like you describe. This would certainly require many more telescopes.

Presently, Seti@Home uses 1.8M personal computers. This would have to grow to 18B. At $500 a pop, that's $9T. That dominates the cost: ALMA will build of order 60 telescopes for a billion dollars, so if you needed 1000 or even 10000, the dominant cost is computing. $9T is approximately the entire economic output of the United States for a year.

Thanks for the reply.

Do you know if SETI@Home's current user base is processing ALL data received, or just a portion of it?

That cost is extremely large, but I think (and hope) that some day we will do it. It probably won't happen in my life time. It's sort of starting to think that even if we were being sent an alien transmission we only have a 0.01% chance of picking it up, even though we try to listen.
 
  • #4
some bands have too much natural stuff happening on them
others have too much man made use to be practical
so of the remaining bands what % does SETI listen to
I would think they try to pick their best guess at the ones with less problems
longest range at lower powers ect
 
  • #5
My SETI Station will take 3,300 years or so

I made a calculation on the number of ‘channels’ I had to examine on my personal SETI station (www.SETI.Net). Here are the numbers:

Since you are all computer literate you understand the concept of address space.

If your computer has a gig of main memory and each address of that gig is a byte (8 bits) wide then you have an address space of 1,000,000,000 X 8 bits or 8 Gigabits. SETI Net has its own address space:

The Paraclipse antenna is 12 foot in diameter. At 1420 MHz this equates to a half power beam width of about 3 degrees (HPBW).

The antenna can be positioned in declination between -35 and +27degrees. Based on 3 degrees BW this is about 20 positions of DEC.

This declination band moves past the antenna every 24 hours of RA (360 degrees of Earth rotation). At 3 degrees this is 120 positions of RA.

The Band Pass Filter (BPF) just after the LNA has a pass band from 1375 MHz to 1475 MHz for a total of 100 MHz wide search band.

The Icom R7000 receiver running with the DRM module has an Audio Band Width of 20,000 Hz (ABW)


So the address space of SETI Net is:

(BPF/ABW) * (RA/HPBW) * (DEC/HPBW) =

(100 E6 / 20 E3) * (360/3) * (62/3) = 12,000,000 channels to surf (I'd better get started hu).

If I spend 2,000 seconds on each channel then: ~ 2.4E10 seconds or ~ 3,300 years to look ONCE in all my address space

And remember this is from my own *very* limited station.

Regards... Jim
 

FAQ: SETI: What would it take to monitor all probable bands.

1. What is SETI and why is it important?

SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and it is a scientific effort to search for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. It is important because it could potentially answer one of the biggest questions in science - are we alone in the universe?

2. How does SETI monitor all probable bands?

SETI uses radio telescopes to scan the universe for signals that may indicate the presence of intelligent life. These telescopes are tuned to different frequencies, or "bands", in order to cover a wide range of possible signals.

3. How many probable bands are there and how long would it take to monitor them all?

There are an infinite number of possible bands, but SETI focuses on a specific range known as the "water hole" which is the frequency range where hydrogen and hydroxyl emit radio waves. In order to monitor all probable bands, it would take an infinite amount of time.

4. Are there any limitations to monitoring all probable bands?

Yes, there are limitations to monitoring all probable bands. Firstly, it would require an infinite amount of time and resources. Secondly, our current technology and understanding of the universe may not be advanced enough to detect all possible signals. Lastly, there may be other factors that we are not aware of that could hinder our ability to monitor all probable bands.

5. Has SETI found any signals from other intelligent life forms?

As of now, SETI has not found any confirmed signals from other intelligent life forms. However, there have been a few instances where signals have been detected that were initially thought to be from extraterrestrial sources, but were later determined to be natural or man-made in origin. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is ongoing and scientists remain hopeful that one day we may make contact with other intelligent beings.

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