I think searching should be co-ordinated with the Kepler planet finder results. So as soon as Earth like planets are discovered, we should immediatly search that area of space for radio transmissions. Results of new planets found aroung other stars are prolific enough now that this would end a lot of wasted number crunching for not knowing where to look.

I think this would also increase our odds of finding 'ET's phone number' in the lifetimes of those contributing to this project now.

(Just a suggestion)

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seti@home is allowed to collect data piggyback style. When someone is working with the dish seti records as well. We don't really have a choice in the matter. Though in the past they have been able to dedicate some time listening to previous candidate sites

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Did we find water on a planet belonging to a star which is located 600 light years away?

Did we send them a signal or message which is supposed to arrive at the destination some 600 years on from now.

Do we already know that this planet is inhabited by someone (meaning intelligent species who may have already conquered part of space and have possibly visited us in the past)?

It will take 600 more years in order to receive a possible answer if we possibly should receive any reply in return.

At least what I was able to deduce from those words flying wildly around.

Heck!

When more planets like this are confirmed in the future, other frequencies should be examined besides what SETI monitors. I forget what it is, or if there are more than one. It's certainly possible that extraterrestrials are using other frequencies. It shouldn't be difficult to continuously scan all radio frequencies from just one source like this. If I had money I'd certainly have an observatory or two.

No our search is in the "quiet" 1420 Mhz level. searching other areas would force the team to really dig deep since there is so much terrestrial noise being produced at other frequencies

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

If our search is in the "quiet" 1420 MHz frequency band level, is there any reason to be looking at other frequencies or frequency bands?

If gaussian scores as one of the four result elements in the Seti@home client in some way are thought of as being returning valid or specific numbers, should this in any way be regarded as being sufficient? You apparently need a signal which consists of a series of gaussians, not just one or two at a time. Two if's here, did not find a better way to say it.

Can you deduce intelligent life and / or communication from gaussian scores alone? Whether or not a number (or signal for that matter) is being returned, it would be thought of as being a space numbers whether or not such a number is showing up as coming from one or more specific stars.

Even Type 0 civilizations like our own are now able to both listen to numbers coming from space as well as broadcast our own message out into space (Meti).

Don't know what "Gaussian" means in the context of SETI. A gaussian (Bell shaped) curve implies a random process. A random process would tend to rule out intelligence in the signal.

Don't know what "Gaussian" means in the context of SETI. ...

A Gaussian signal strength profile is what is expected if the field of view for the receiving radio dish scans across a continuous transmission. This can be expected to happen for example when Arecibo is 'idle' and the Earth's rotation causes the reception field of view to scan across the sky. You will get smaller width Gaussians if the radio telescope is being swept across the sky for positioning to a target or if scanning following a survey pattern for example.


Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

May you possibly be able to deduce that something was ever present if one or more tasks you were running were returning particular or specific gaussians, but otherwise you may not have been able to obtain anything conclusive from the rest of what you were able to get back?

If a signal should ever be considered to be intelligent, the rest of it (excluding the gaussian or gaussian score) should be thought of as being somewhat meaningful, though probably much different than what we would be used at otherwise.

A strong signal yes. But, also some modulation either on-off, phase, frequency or amplitude modulation counting out the prime numbers or the first 50 digits of pi for example.

If a possible signal was ever thought to repeat itself (or being repetitive in nature), do we not then see a possible cyclic change of one or more of the numbers in it during shorter or longer time intervals?

If someone were to communicate with us, they will send us a message, have a break in their transmission and then continue with their message or communication at a later stage. In the end the transmission will stop in the same way as it eventually started up.

To us a transmission means words, numbers and possibly symbols. Music / tones can be readily expressed by means of a numerical format and you can also decode (encrypt) as well as scramble such a signal. An audio signal thought of as being analog in nature (and therefore resembling a wave) was for some reason not interpreted in the WOW signal.

If a signal rather had a binary or digital nature, its numbers would then become readable. We interpret gaussians derived from the pulses in this way in order to extract possible intelligence from it.

They won't know who "Us" is until possibly hundreds or thousands of years later or at least 8 years later than they originally sent the message since the nearest star is four light-years away. They are not likely to keep beaming at a far distant planet for this period of time unless they have previously received a signal from us telling them where we are. If they heard our spurious signals then we would have heard them also by now in all likelyhood if they were as far along in technology as we were 100 years ago. Remember there are relatively few stars out to 100 light years from the Earth.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely our random radio signals (TV, radio, etc.) will ever be detected by an alien civilization on their planet. After a few light-years they become indistinguishable from background radiation left over from the Big Bang. We need to intentionally sent an immensely strong signal into space in order for an alien civilization to detect it (to overcome the inverse square law). The same is true on their part in order for us to detect their signals, assuming their regular transmissions aren't much stronger than ours.

It's not enough to simply point a transmitter at the point of light in the sky. Let's say the newly-discovered planet is 1000 light-years away. You need to know where that star will be in 1000 years since the stars in this galaxy are moving (although relatively slowly to us). Then you can transmit in that direction. The alien civilization must also take this into account.

There are still a LOT of unknowns, such as how long radio signals are used by an average civilization, assuming there are others out there. The window of opportunity for them to receive the radio signal may come and go by the time our signal gets there. Instead of radio transmissions they may eventually use neutrinos, or even tachyons (if they exist) to communicate. The same could be true for us. We may advance beyond radio signals by the time their signal gets here. We could think there's nothing there, or they could think there's nothing here because nobody replied.

Neutrinos would allow them to communicate in almost perfect clarity through any object other than a black hole. If they expanded their civilization beyond their home system, tachyons would allow quick communication. Tachyons would probably have other uses for them as well, although it's entirely theoretical. It may take hundreds, or maybe thousands of years to advance that far. Even so, they could miss our radio signal.

One thing is for sure, useful radio communication with an alien civilization can only be done with a relatively nearby system. A long message every 50 years (25 to get there and another 25 to get a response) may be useful only as a news update, although just my guess. It may take that long to understand their language, if it's even possible.

They'd have to send us an immense amount of data with several examples of everything they use to describe something, like a dictionary or key. The color red, for example. If you showed them a circle with the inside colored red and you said the word "red", they still won't know what you're talking about unless you show them many different objects that are red. They can then understand what's common between the objects, the color. If we miss any part of that transmission we won't know what they're talking about. We have no way of telling them what we're missing for 25 years.

One could assume that the alien intelligence already considered this, and broadcasted a long attention-gathering signal ahead of the short block of important data. After that it would repeat the long attention-gathering signal and the short block of data again. They can continue this indefinitely until someone responds long into the future. Of course, they must be certain that this planet they discovered by precise long-range observations has a high chance of supporting life.

Duane, it brings home to you the thought of how remote our chances
are of finding an alien transmission out there. Our best hope is that
if aliens do exist then they know of our possible existence too. To this
end they are actively sending signals to us and hence just time before
we receive any of them.

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The Kite Fliers

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Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

The following question came up in my mind:

Is the Seti@home client supposed to be returning only the highest or best numbers it finds, or are the numbers thought of as possibly being an alien signal something else in between (meaning neither the highest numbers nor the lowest numbers)?

Which means that such numbers preferably should be visible more than one time.