Do the SETI people listen for extraterrestrial signals by listening in headphones?

Question

How do they do it & how can a citizen get involved?

Answer 1

you can go to there site and let them use your computer when it is sitting ideal they have a program that makes your computer part of a huge network of computers that analyze data that the radio telescopes have collected.
they don't listen to head phones but instead watch charts that show if the radio telescope has picked up a signal and if so is it random or part of some intelligent code or language

Answer 2

Headphones are great for anytime I want to block out other sounds, precisely control the volume if I'm trying read and want the music just loud enough that I can still concentrate, if I don't want to disturb others or, if I want to keep my choice of music private. Headphones also let you hear some of the sounds you might miss otherwise. But good speakers have a spatial richness and bass effects that no headphones can match; you can't hear any real reflected sound through headphones (though some sound processors can add imitations) and hearing the bass only in you ears just isn't the same as feeling the room shake. I'd miss out on a lot by limiting myself to either.

Answer 3

NO. Radio telescopes give you a signal you can turn into a spectrum or a map on the sky, but it's not a radio signal like you'd get over the radio. Wrong frequency.

Look up 'seti at home' to download data sets your computer can analyze to help them go through the massive amounts of data they have.

Answer 4

No, not primarily anyway. They download data and let computers watch over it for any possible unnaturally occuring signals. I am sure tho that they do convert some of the data into a sound format and listen for chits and giggles tho. You can join the SETI search at home project.

Answer 5

Nope - they use computers to analyse the data that they record, and look for specific pattern. Another user posted the link to the seti@home project. You can download the software to your system, and let your PC work on it while you're doing something else. It's automatic, and doesn't cost you a dime.

Answer 6

No they let computers do the work. Go to the site below -- SETI@home. You can download a screen saver that will do analysis for them when you're not busy on your computer.

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Answer 7

You can also go to the boinc site. From there you can choose to join SETI@home or any other scientific program that borrows computer time on the same principle.
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Answer 8

They sweep a large band of frequencies that no human could decipher.
They use computers.
The data is so massive that they have portioned it out so anyone with a computer can participate.

Answer 9

No. All the data are converted to computer files and processed. This requires a lot of computing power, and you can help by lending them the unused cycles of your computer.