General Information
Modern microwave SETI observations began in 1960, with the launch of Frank Drake's Project Ozma targeted search from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank WV. In the four decades since, dozens of SETI projects have been conducted by various government agencies, universities, and scientific organizations. Today, though SETI is privately funded, we enjoy a wider range of SETI activities than ever before. The table below summarizes five major microwave SETI observing programs currently underway.
| Search: | Project Argus | Project BETA | Project Phoenix | SETI@home | Southern SERENDIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsors: | SETI League | Planetary Society, Bosack/Kruger Foundation |
SETI Institute | UC Berkeley, Planetary Society, Sun Microsystems, Fujifilm |
SETI Australia Centre, CSIRO, SETI Institute |
| Contact: | H. Paul Shuch | Paul Horowitz | Seth Shostak | Dan Werthimer | Frank Stootman |
| Telescopes: | 121 now, 5000 planned | one (Harvard MA) | two (Arecibo PR, Jodrell Bank UK) | one (Arecibo PR) | one (Parkes Australia) |
| Antenna Diameter: | 3 - 5 meter | 26 meter | 305 meter, 76 meter | 305 meter | 64 meter |
| Type of Search: | global all-sky | northern all-sky | targeted | parasitic | southern all-sky |
| Unique Feature: | all directions in real time | 2 Billion channels | follow-up detection device | >4,000,000 computers | 58.8 Million channels |
| Main Strength: | amateur radio telescopes | 3-beam, full waterhole search | near-realtime followup, RFI discrimination | distributed computing | multi-channel spectrum analyzer |
| Participants: | radio amateurs | graduate students | professional astronomers | general public | University students and researchers |
| Annual Budget: | $29,700 | $35,000 | $750,000 | $500,000 | not disclosed |
| Sky Coverage: | excellent | good | 1000 nearby stars | fair | good |
| Sensitivity: | fair | good | excellent | excellent | good |
| Chances for Success: | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown | unknown |
Follow this link for a comparison of various Optical SETI projects.
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