MVP ARCHIVE NASA | SEARCH FOR LIFE 07: SETI / Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - Exploring Cosmic Civilizations via Radio Waves

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - Exploring Cosmic Civilizations via Radio Waves

Does life exist in the universe?
And if that life possesses intelligence and has built a civilization, can humanity find it?

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a field of research that tackles this question using scientific methods.
Its basic concept is simple.
If an advanced civilization exists, it may be radiating some form of artificial radio waves or signals into space.
The attempt involves observing those signals with massive radio telescopes to search for radio waves with regularities that cannot be explained by natural phenomena.

This concept began in earnest with the 1960 "Project Ozma." Astronomer Frank Drake observed nearby stars, conducting humanity's first full-scale search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Since then, SETI research has continued at observation facilities around the world, and NASA also supported related research and technology development from the 1970s through the 1990s.
Currently, universities, research institutions, and private foundations are taking the lead in continuing to analyze vast amounts of cosmic radio data.

What SETI is looking for is not spaceships or unknown materials.
What it is looking for is "regularity that cannot be created by nature."

For example, if there are radio waves concentrated only on an extremely narrow frequency, signals with mathematical patterns, or characteristics thought to be generated only artificially, they become candidates indicating the existence of an intelligent civilization.

Several interesting observation examples have been reported so far.
The "Wow! Signal" observed in 1977 is known as a representative example.
However, the same signal was never confirmed again, and its source remains unidentified to this day. At present, no definitive evidence has been obtained that it was a communication from an extraterrestrial intelligent civilization.

Even so, the reason SETI continues is not because an answer has been found.
It is believed that there are galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in the universe, and that there are more than hundreds of billions of such galaxies.

In that vast universe, the fact that it "has not been found yet" does not mean that it "does not exist."

SETI is not research to prove the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.
It is a long-term exploration in which humanity uses the method of science to continue challenging the question:

"Are we the only intelligent civilization in the universe?"

that is what it is.