How many of you have SETI @ home program running on your home computer? I am sure that the answer is zero. Tsk, Tsk.
SETI or Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence was the effort co founded by Sagan. The effort is mainly supported by the private sector, and sponsored by Berkeley and I think Harvard too. In nutshell, I think the way it works that dozens of radio telescopes scan a little portion of the sky everyday and sends the raw data to a central computer. From there, computer sends small chunks of that data to thousands of household computers like yours and mine. The program kicks in during the idle hours of your computer and started analyzing the data and sent the report back to the central computer. That way, without using any major resource, and by letting 100s of thousands of enthusiasts participate, the program is continuing.
If you want to participate, download this small program on your computer and take part in looking out for small green men.
.
