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Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence


Could humans be the only intelligent beings in all the vastness of the universe? Or are we just one humble race, a member of a vast intergalactic fraternity of advanced civilizations? SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is the scientific quest to answer these great unknowns. As of now all we have are questions, but we know the answers, when they come, could transform our world. For the past 25 years, The Planetary Society has worked hard to make sure we never stop seeking these answers.

The effort to scientifically address the ancient question "are we alone?" is surprisingly recent, dating from the late 1950s. In the five decades of SETI, many projects were launched, utilizing a wide variety of approaches. Some followed the example of the first SETI search, Project Ozma: they pointed highly sensitive radio telescopes at the most promising stars, and listening at 1420 Megahertz – an emission frequency of hydrogen, the most common element in the universe. Others opted for all-sky surveys, searching for promising signals originating from any point of the visible skies. Some abandoned the hydrogen line "magical" frequency, searching on alternative promising frequencies or in as broad a band as possible. Others yet have opted for a radically different approach, Optical SETI, which searches for signal in the visible light range.

Since the day it was formed in 1980, The Planetary Society has been there to support the Search. Already in 1981 when Federal funding for SETI research was threatened by Congressional action, the Society used its political muscle to help preserve funding for another eleven years. When NASA's SETI project was finally cancelled in 1992, The Planetary Society stepped in, and has been one of the leading sponsors of SETI research in the world ever since. We did it because we never have, and we never will stop asking that simple and haunting question that has been with us since the dawn of human consciousness: "Is anybody out there?"