What is SETI@home?
SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a scientific area whose goal is to detect intelligent life outside Earth. One approach, known as radio SETI, uses radio telescopes to listen for narrow-bandwidth radio signals from space. Such signals are not known to occur naturally, so a detection would provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology.

You can participate by running this free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data. And now, with this CUDA-optimized client powered by your CUDA-ready GeForce GPU, your system can deliver as much as 10 times the computational power of an average home PC CPU.

What is distributed computing?
Distributed computing is the application of several computers to a single problem at the same time - usually to a scientific or technical problem that requires a great number of computer processing cycles or access to large amounts of data. In distributed computing a program is split into parts that run simultaneously on multiple computers communicating over a network to enable supercomputing-like results.

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
CUDA enabled GPU (NVIDIA GeForce 8-series or later)
256 MB RAM, 1 GB or higher recommended
PCI Express or PCI Express 2.0 compliant motherboard
Microsoft Windows Vista, 32-bit or 64-bit, Windows XP or Windows XP Professional ×64 Edition
50 MB of available hard disk space
Latest NVIDIA Driver


* Based on upgrade options for consumers who own a common Intel Core2 Duo E8200 based PC. Consumer may choose NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX for $149 or must upgrade entire system to Intel Core i7 965, 3GB DDR3, x58 motherboard for total of $1,449. Prices based on NewEgg as of 12/15/09