technologies driving seti
- Paper number
IAC-10.A4.1.5
- Author
Mr. Curtis Mead, Harvard University, United States
- Year
2010
- Abstract
Recently, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) celebrated its fiftieth birthday since Frank Drake first pointed a radio telescope at two nearby Suns, waiting to receive a message from a greater intergalactic community. That first modern attempt at discovering life elsewhere in the galaxy was piggybacking on the growing capabilities in the (at the time) new and exciting field of radio astronomy. In the same year, 1960, the very first laser was demonstrated, leading to speculation that it too was a technology that could be used for talking amongst the stars. Indeed, throughout SETI's history technological advances have driven the field to attempt new and more sensitive observations. Today, field programmable gate arrays, the computing platform {\it du jour}, are becoming an integral part of many new surveys including Harvard's Advanced All-sky Optical SETI. This and other state of the art SETI surveys and systems will be presented and discussed in terms of their technology drivers.- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)