We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.
~ Anais Nin

“SHAGGY” Arch Faces Series by Seth Dennon

Hello Ever­yone:

I believe in sup­por­ting SETI@home efforts strongly, more infor­ma­tion is below.

In Loving Light,

~ Seth Dennon

Decem­ber 2010 | SETI@home needs your help!

In the last few months SETI@home has made great steps for­ward thanks to the gene­ro­sity of volun­teers like you. In Octo­ber, SETI@home recei­ved dona­tions that allo­wed us to make the exci­ting purchase of new high-​​performance ser­vers. Over the last month, the pro­ject has been in an outage as the team here at UC Ber­ke­ley has wor­ked tire­lessly to clean up the data­ba­ses and com­plete a full ser­ver migra­tion. This will allow the pro­ject to run more smoothly than it ever has before. Without the sup­port of user dona­tions, this major upgrade to the pro­ject would not have been possible.

Though the SETI@home pro­ject has been active for over ten years, we are still branching out and explo­ring new scien­ti­fic direc­tions. As you may know, the data that your com­pu­ter analy­zes comes from the Are­cibo radio teles­cope in Puerto Rico. While Are­cibo is an immen­sely power­ful teles­cope, it can­not see the entire sky. In the coming year, we hope to be able to start collec­ting data at The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Teles­cope in West Vir­gi­nia, allo­wing us to lis­ten in on parts of the sky that, up until now, we have not been able to reach.

Further­more, in February of 2011, NASA is sla­ted to release data from the Kepler Mis­sion, con­tai­ning the loca­tion of seve­ral new exo­pla­nets that could poten­tially be home to inte­lli­gent life. In 2011, we hope to per­form a tar­ge­ted search of the Kepler field, loo­king for signs of inte­lli­gent life beyond Earth. This search would also be done at the Green Bank Telescope.

In order to carry out these exci­ting new plans, we would like to ask you again for your sup­port. SETI@home has always been a colla­bo­ra­tive effort on a glo­bal scale; there is no other pro­ject on Earth that is quite as depen­dent on the help and con­tri­bu­tions of the glo­bal public. In order to keep SETI@home up and run­ning, as well as accom­plish this year’s scien­ti­fic goals, we need your help. To make a secure tax-​​deductible dona­tion click here, which will take you to a page of ins­truc­tions on how to donate online or through mail via check. Any amount that you are willing to donate this holi­day sea­son would be a great help. Your con­tri­bu­tion will not only allow SETI@home to con­ti­nue to run as it has for the past ten years, but also pro­vide the oppor­tu­nity to expand the search for inte­lli­gent life in exci­ting new direc­tions. These efforts repre­sent our best chance at ans­we­ring the ever-​​elusive ques­tion: Are we alone?

Thank you for your sup­port and con­ti­nuing dedi­ca­tion to SETI@Home.

Sin­ce­rely,

Arie­lle Little, Stu­dent Intern

Dr. Eric Kor­pela, Pro­ject Scien­tist

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