Naw, Tunguska was a decade too early for that.
Well, if the Centauran’s technology was identical to our own, and they started their own SETI program when we did, (proto-SETI began about 1959), they’d have started receiving signals immediately; television from 1955, assuming they were looking in our direction.
If a signal from an alien civilization arrived at one of our SETI sites, wouldn’t they have to be listening on the exact frequency as the broadcast (taking into account doppler, of course)?
Likewise, on the other end? If so, what’s to guarantee they won’t miss “I Love Lucy” because they’re watching the “Mr. Rogers” frequency instead?
And while we’re on the subject, what’s happening with SETI@home these days? It’s had four years or more of simultaneous, worldwide data-crunching, yet no significant announcements have been forthcoming. A check of their web site shows very little new; they are always crowing about analysis and re-analysis. How much data is there left to analyze and how much analysis is enough?
No, I don’t expect an overnight announcement that LGMs have been found, but the longer the search continues without evidence getting stronger reminds me a bit of the search for bigfoot, which so far, has been equally rewarding.
Side note: it looks like there is a virus/worm that installs and runs the SETI@home software. Hah! Could this be an alien-generated virus?? Maybe they WANT to be found? :eek:
Modern radiotelescopes can monitor tens of millions of frequencies simultaneously. The technology today is absolutely amazing.
Kinda like a scanner?
But is data from all frequencies recorded for later analysis? If so, it would seen like the quantity would be impossibly large. Maybe that’s why SETI@home takes so long.
Not exactly like a scanner, no. A scanner only monitors one frequency at a time, but it steps through them sequentially until it hears a signal, then it stops, unless you tell it to skip it. A radiotelescope receiver listens to all tens of millions of frequencies at the same time, and yes, it records continuous streaming data from each channel it is monitoring. And yeah, it’s a shitload of data:
From the Seti@home website.
Bolding mine.