When the SETI@home project began in May 1999, using a computer screensaver to search for alien signals seemed almost as crazy as searching at all. But one million years of computer time later, the project has been phenomenally successful.

It has also been popular, with 3.8 million users now signed up and doing their bit for intergalactic communication.

Alien contact will possibly be made via radio first. (Picture courtesy of Rod Dickinson)

SETI or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence scans the skies, looking for radio waves, or more specifically looking for radio waves which repeat or create a pattern.

Because our sun is only a single star in a collection of over 400 billion we call the Milky Way galaxy, and the Milky Way is only 1 of billions of galaxies in the universe, there are lots of radio waves.

The screensaver facility allows SETI to send users bits of radio wave data to analyse.

There are now nearly four million users, and between them they've analysed a millions years of radio data..and you never know it could be your computer which finds ET, trying to get through. You'll just have to hope he isn't trying to reverse the charges.

You can download the screen saver from the SETI site here

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