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[Editor's note: We have been unable to corroborate this story from GHacks. A search on Google has found there are other reports of this, but they all refer to a forum that no longer corroborates this report. It seems there was — something — but that it is not now visible on their site. See, too, the "Previously" section at the bottom which suggests this story may be in error. Can any Soylentil shed some light on this? --martyb]
SETI@Home's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence comes to an end - gHacks Tech News:
SETI@Home will go into hibernation on March 31, 2020. The distributed computing project was launched in 1999 to analyze data provided by the radio telescope Arecibo in Puerto Rico. Later on, data from the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and Parkes Observatory in Australia were added.
SETI@Home -- SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence -- broke down the signals into packets which it then distributed to connected computer systems. These computer systems, often operated by volunteers from around the world, would then be used to analyze the data and transfer results back to the project.
[...] The project maintainers at UC Berkeley provide two reasons for the decision:
- The project is "at a point of diminishing returns" as it has "analyzed all the data" that is needed "for now".
- Managing the distributed processing of data is a lot of work and time is required to complete the "back-end analysis of the results" that have been obtained already.
Hibernation means that the project is not disappearing from the face of the earth. The project website and forums remain open and the distributed computing resources of SETI@Home may be used by other scientific research projects to focus on areas such as "cosmology or pulsar research". Seti@Home may start distributing work again if that happens and the project team will make an announcement if a new research project has been found.
Previously:
New Technologies, Strategies Expanding Search for Extraterrestrial Life
(Score: 5, Funny) by ikanreed on Tuesday March 03 2020, @07:41PM (6 children)
Humanity is apparently the best the universe has to offer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @07:59PM
At least until we discover subspace / quantum communications.
Seriously, if there is ever the hope of communicating between the stars then radio waves just aren't it. Even if they are the only option they are so slow as to basically be useless. Anyone communicating across distances with our current level of tech will be using tight beam lasers or something similar, and it would be quite unlikely that Earth would be in the cone to intercept many of these or have the equipment in place to catch them if they do.
If there is no FTL communication at the least then the only method will be sending out time capsules of extended transmissions. If there is FTL then there are some very amused aliens somewhere laughing at humans concluding that they are alone in the universe. Well ok, probably not laughing, they probably went through it themselves.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:02PM
Maybe the only?
For certain values of intelligent.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday March 03 2020, @09:03PM
AHEM
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @10:42PM
Wait, we destroy the environment, kill off so many other species on Earth, kill each other (wars), have corrupt politicians, yet we're somehow the best the universe has to offer? One can argue that animals and other life forms here on Earth are better than we are.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday March 03 2020, @10:56PM (1 child)
The Centauri are coming and i want to talk with Londo: LOVE the way he enunciates EVERY FREAKING WORD! :}
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @07:48AM
Too late, you missed them
Ah, well, you missed him, but you can always talk to his only son and representative on earth [imgur.com] (He ** knows! ** (I tells ye!) way too much about alien visitors for that hairstyle to be mere happenstance...