If it comes back, it wont be for YEARS. it wont be back in 6 months or any other pie-in-the-sky fantasies some might be holding on to.

Agreed. Barring some type of major technological breakthrough like the building of space based arrays of telescopes, I'm not seeing the current scopes as being capable of looking any further back in time to get more signals.

There is still the Southern Hemisphere yet to be checked with existing radio telescopes. And the more data from the north, the more points of reference for that area.

I'm not sure that we can interrogate that much more in the universe by using sites in the southern hemisphere. We have a pretty good idea what surrounds us in all directions. I think any amount of data we can get from that would be minimal. We are at the point that basing more telescopes off world are far more interesting.

Again...very speculative on the return of SETI. I'm not feeling good about that prospect coming up.

. . Sadly nor am I. It might have a slim chance if there are people with serious clout pushing for it and someone/s with serious cash willing to sponsor it. So far there have apparently been no other projects looking to take advantage of the hardware and volunteer resources S@H has developed over 2 decades. <sigh>

Stephen

:(

There is still the Southern Hemisphere yet to be checked with existing radio telescopes. And the more data from the north, the more points of reference for that area.

I'm not sure that we can interrogate that much more in the universe by using sites in the southern hemisphere. We have a pretty good idea what surrounds us in all directions. I think any amount of data we can get from that would be minimal. We are at the point that basing more telescopes off world are far more interesting.

. . Ohhhh ssooooo wrong, the truly Southern observatories can add so much more observing time on our own Milky Way galaxy which is where the best hope of getting a signal lies. Observing other galaxies (the main gain from off-world telescopes) is a worthwhile goal for astro-physics, but not so much for finding ET.

Stephen

:(

Again...very speculative on the return of SETI. I'm not feeling good about that prospect coming up.

. . Sadly nor am I. It might have a slim chance if there are people with serious clout pushing for it and someone/s with serious cash willing to sponsor it. So far there have apparently been no other projects looking to take advantage of the hardware and volunteer resources S@H has developed over 2 decades. <sigh>

Stephen

:(

The space race is still well in its infancy. The next big push appears to be corporate interest in gaining resources from nearby bodies, which hopefully would lead to fewer resources being needed from our own earth, perhaps a time of healing there. If this type of project were to gain any real traction, it would likely be at some point in the future when we are on the cusp on interstellar travel, and it becomes far more important for us to keep asking the question of what challenges might we face if we move beyond the solar system. That's where I believe space based arrays will be necessary, perhaps being located in the so-called north and south hemispheres of the solar system, instead of at the near equator. That's further in our future than any current political or business interest would dare dream.

If it comes back, it wont be for YEARS. it wont be back in 6 months or any other pie-in-the-sky fantasies some might be holding on to.

Agreed. Barring some type of major technological breakthrough like the building of space based arrays of telescopes, I'm not seeing the current scopes as being capable of looking any further back in time to get more signals.

But we haven't checked "all" the radio frequencies yet :) So there is plenty of observing left.....


Tom M

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

There is still the Southern Hemisphere yet to be checked with existing radio telescopes. And the more data from the north, the more points of reference for that area.

I'm not sure that we can interrogate that much more in the universe by using sites in the southern hemisphere. We have a pretty good idea what surrounds us in all directions. I think any amount of data we can get from that would be minimal. We are at the point that basing more telescopes off world are far more interesting.

. . Ohhhh ssooooo wrong, the truly Southern observatories can add so much more observing time on our own Milky Way galaxy which is where the best hope of getting a signal lies. Observing other galaxies (the main gain from off-world telescopes) is a worthwhile goal for astro-physics, but not so much for finding ET.

Stephen

:(

I'm not seeing any real benefit the Southern Hemisphere has in that regard. We get a pretty good look into both the center of the Milky Way and outer bands from equatorial regions. The 63 degree tilt to the galactic plane pretty much assures that visibility. The Hubble itself has peered into the center of the galaxy, so LOS is good, all we need is a listening post. And to suggest that life is more likely in one section of the galaxy as opposed to another is a pretty bold statement. Life will exist in any place the conditions are favorable, which is an apparent accident waiting to happen with the right ingredients emitted from a supernova in the general vicinity over the past few billion years, which if you could find a way to pinpoint those events, would be of extreme value. We just got lucky in our little corner of the galaxy.

Meh...bring on Milkomeda, we'll make a few more supernovae there :)

If/when Seti comes back, and they need to limit the size of the database again- 1 month deadlines on initial replication & 1 week for resends & a server side limit on the cache (12hrs if the weekly outage takes 6, 24hrs if it takes 12) would be the way to go.

Boinc server won't really know how long your cache will last. It's the client that does those calculations and then asks the number of seconds it wants. So the server can't limit your cache size by time. It knows how fast you crunch individual tasks but it does not know how many tasks you are crunching at the same time.

But what it could do is to not send you any new work if you still have unreturned tasks sent to you more than n hours ago. This would have the additional bonus effect of forcing the user to recover his ghosts if he has any because they would block him from receiving new work. But I'm afraid that checking this could have similar effect on database load as the automatic ghost recovery. Scheduler would have to find the oldest tasks sent to you and not returned yet.

I'm not seeing any real benefit the Southern Hemisphere has in that regard. We get a pretty good look into both the center of the Milky Way and outer bands from equatorial regions. The 63 degree tilt to the galactic plane pretty much assures that visibility. The Hubble itself has peered into the center of the galaxy, so LOS is good

In the northern hemisphere, the galactic center is visible in the southern half of the sky while in the southern hemisphere, it can be positioned directly overhead, particularly in the peak of the “Milky Way Season” around the time of the June Solstice.

Well first off, for the first 15 years of the project all we listened with was the Arecibo telescope. It can only observe straight up. It had no chance of ever observing the galactic center which is low on the southern horizon in the northern hemisphere.

And what does Hubble, a visible light telescope orbiting Earth, have anything to do with radio astronomy?

Even the steerable GBT might have not been able to point that low in declination for Sgr A*. I don't know the actual limits offhand. Probably not an easy target.

Parkes would have been the preferred radio telescope for Sgr A*.

My belief is that any advanced civilization would need very large sources of energy. Plenty of that in the galactic center.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Even the steerable GBT might have not been able to point that low in declination for Sgr A*. I don't know the actual limits offhand. Probably not an easy target.

When you use a steerable radio telescope to observe something close to the horizon, the signals from terrestrial unintelligence will overpower any potential signal from extraterrestrial intelligence.

My belief is that any advanced civilization would need very large sources of energy. Plenty of that in the galactic center.

Galactic center is unlikely place for life to form, so that advanced civilization would have to originate elsewhere. There is a harsh radiation environment and too frequent close encounters between stars for planets to have stable orbits for billions of years.

In the northern hemisphere, the galactic center is visible in the southern half of the sky while in the southern hemisphere, it can be positioned directly overhead, particularly in the peak of the “Milky Way Season” around the time of the June Solstice.

If line of sight is established, the angle is irrelevant. Even a few thousand miles is irrelevant on the scale we are interrogating.

Well first off, for the first 15 years of the project all we listened with was the Arecibo telescope. It can only observe straight up. It had no chance of ever observing the galactic center which is low on the southern horizon in the northern hemisphere.

That is still an angular issue, which depending on the cycle, will be different. Galactic center is so full of astrophysical activity, the chances of seeing any life is slim to none anyway. Not like we are going to find societies where at least one super massive black hole, and many stars are interacting.

And what does Hubble, a visible light telescope orbiting Earth, have anything to do with radio astronomy?

Line of sight is everything, if you can see it (one end of the electromagnetic scale), you can hear it (another location in the EM scale).

Even the steerable GBT might have not been able to point that low in declination for Sgr A*. I don't know the actual limits offhand. Probably not an easy target.

Then why are we so hesitant to look at space based arrays as opposed to ground based, where we don't have to worry about any angular issues on a globe?

Parkes would have been the preferred radio telescope for Sgr A*.

and any space based array would be the more optimal solution again.

My belief is that any advanced civilization would need very large sources of energy. Plenty of that in the galactic center.

Science would disagree with you. The amount of energy at the center of the galaxy is outside the bounds of life as we currently understand it. This is one of the harshest environments to support any kind of life. Aside from the EM issues, there are a lot more issues with astrophysical bodies stamming into each other. This furnace would not likely support even the most robust forms of microbial life. It is believed that ANY possibility of life would likely be found in active areas of the bands of larger galaxies like our own. At least according to most documentaries I've ever watched with astrophisicists discussing the issue of life in galaxies. I will give you this though, the other side of the galaxy holds many possibilities, and it will always be the hardest to interrogate. Looking through the center is going to be absolutely impossible given the interference surrounding Sagittarius A (and maybe B we still don't know for sure it isn't a binary black hole) makes looking in that area beyond our capability for many centuries. There is also some evidence (gas plumes in the north and south hemispheres of the milky way) which suggests that the center of the galaxy was likely victim to pulsar activity emanating from Sag A around the time of the dinosaurs and before, which doesn't bode well for any development of life anywhere even close to the center of the Milky Way. I just don't think looking there has any benefit to us whatsoever.

Results out in the field 1,998,795 As of 16 Apr 2020, 10:40:04 UTC

Results out in the field 1,998,795 As of 16 Apr 2020, 10:40:04 UTC

Yep. 1,997,218 and falling.

Results out in the field 1,998,795 As of 16 Apr 2020, 10:40:04 UTC

Yep. 1,997,218 and falling.

Very, very slowly.
A few more Tasks have moved in to my Valid list. But they won't be moving out for a while yet, next resend isn't due till late May for many, early June for a fair few others. But will get rid of a few over the next couple of weeks, and i expect more to replace them waiting on resends at a later date.

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Grant
Darwin NT

I've seen quite a few timeouts for tasks issued 23 Feb 2020, time expiring for the first time today. Those at least will purge quite quickly - in fact, several have already gone, although some are overflows and have gone for a check validation.

Parkes would have been the preferred radio telescope for Sgr A*.

and any space based array would be the more optimal solution again.

. . The things about looking towards the centre of the Galaxy is that there is a lot more of the Galaxy to be seen than out here on the fringe. There is a helluva lot of real estate to monitor between here and the actual Galactic centre. I guess if YOU were on a mission at the edge of the Arctic ice cap wanting to communicate with other people you would aim your dish at the North pole rather than say, London?

. . Oh, and one other very critical fact. We HAVE Parkes and have had for many decades. So when are you going to build these off world radio telescopes?

Stephen

:(

A few more Tasks have moved in to my Valid list. But they won't be moving out for a while yet, next resend isn't due till late May for many, early June for a fair few others. But will get rid of a few over the next couple of weeks, and i expect more to replace them waiting on resends at a later date.

If a task is already on your valid list, then it won't be resent when its remaining wingman's task expires. When it expires, The WU will get assimilated and purged.

If a task is already on your valid list, then it won't be resent when its remaining wingman's task expires. When it expires, The WU will get assimilated and purged.

. . Provided it was not one with multipled group resends that still has one or more other wingman/men to wait on.

Stephen

:(

My total number of tasks has reduced by two in the last 24 hours. A quick check says most, about 150, have deadlines of 23 & 24 May.