covering the week's top tech stores it's
like Linux bias astronomers say they
have all the data they need in the
search for extraterrestrial life
distributed computer network SETI at
home has ceased scouring radio telescope
data for signs of extraterrestrials
after 20 years much like folding at home
which is currently acting as the world's
most powerful supercomputer in the fight
against the new coronavirus SETI at home
utilized a vast user donated network of
computers to analyze data but is now
heading into hibernation SETI at home
has been in operation since 1999 during
that time it has processed heaps of
radio telescope data collected from the
deepest depths of space and listened in
to narrowband radio signals in order to
track down anything out of the ordinary
to do so it relied upon the
contributions of computers from across
the globe graphics cards and powerful
CPUs in tow all working together in
order to learn of life beyond Earth but
don't you worry it's not shutting down
due to lack of interest in fact the
researchers based out of USC Berkeley
are inundated with the data but with no
need for further data the team of
astronomers will instead focus their
efforts on back-end analysis for later
publication in a scientific journal the
project's message boards will remain
operational but there's no longer any
need to task your gaming rig with the
search for extraterrestrials SETI at
home may one day return researchers are
eyeing up potentially eyeing up
potential use cases and will distribute
tasks in cosmology and pulsar research
research sometime in the future nothing
is set in stone however so it's better
to put your gaming PC to good use
researching elsewhere then leaving it
idling the SETI at home team recommends
lending your help to folding at home
it's a critical task of simulating the
Cova 19 virus that project is currently
operating at 1.5 EXA flops of computing
power kindly donated from across the
globe that's a whole frontier
supercomputers work for scale
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