►
Description
Topic: A Cosmic Perspective: Searching for Aliens, Finding Ourselves
Speaker: Dr. Jill Tarter, SETI
Description:
Are we alone? Humans have been asking this question throughout history. We want to know where we came from, how we fit into the cosmos, and where we are going. We want to know whether there is life beyond the Earth and whether any of it is intelligent.
Since the middle of the twentieth century we have had tools that permit us to embark on a scientific exploration to try to answer this old question. We no longer have to ask the priests and philosophers what we should believe about extraterrestrial life; we can explore and discover what’s actually out there. Our tools are getting ever better. We have discovered extremophiles in the most unexpected places on this planet and we have discovered that there really are far more planets than stars out there. We haven’t yet found life beyond Earth, but there is a vast amount of potentially-habitable real estate to explore. The 21 st century will be the century in which we will find some answers to this old question; there are many paths we will investigate.
As we look up and look out, we are forced to see ourselves from a cosmic perspective; a perspective that shows us as all the same, all Earthlings. This perspective is fundamental to finding a way to sustain life on Earth for the long future.
A
A
So
but
besides
this,
we
also
have
like
star
parties
and
other
events
like
solar,
viewing,
which
we
are
completely
doing
online
now,
so
please
feel
free
to
check
out
our
website
our
meetup,
as
well
as
our
youtube
channel
that
we
have
just
recently
started,
and
this
is
all
work
in
progress.
We
are
still
figuring
out
figuring
out
the
format
and
learning
the
ropes
of
it.
A
A
Coming
to
today's
talk,
I
I
have
to
admit
I'm
awestruck
and
I'm
a
bit
nervous
to
introduce
her,
but
it
is
my
honor
to
introduce
dr
jill
tarter,
who
is
an
emeritus
chair
at
steady
research
at
the
set
institute
in
mountain
view
in
california,
and
she
serves
as
a
member
of
board
of
trustees
for
that
institution
as
well.
Dr
tarter
received
her
bachelor
of
engineering
physics,
degree
with
distinction
from
cornell
university
and
her
master's
degree
and
phd
in
astronomy
from
university
of
california
berkeley.
A
A
I
mean
it's
it's
a
question
that
has
been
on
all
our
minds
for
as
long
as
we
have
existed
as
a
human
species,
and
I
think
it's
I
would
I'm
really
looking
forward
to
hearing
more
from
her
and
if
you
are,
if
you
have
ever
watched
the
movie
contact,
you
already
are
familiar
with
her
because
her
work
has
been
portrayed
by
jodie
foster
in
the
movie,
her
biography.
Making
contact
was
written
by
sarah
scholes
and
published
in
2017,
so
feel
free
to
check
out
the
book.
A
B
Thank
you.
Thank
you
for
the
introduction
and
hello
to
all
of
you
out
there.
It
seems
really
still
weird
to
be
staring
at
a
screen
and
talking
to
a
bunch
of
folks,
but
I
hope
that
will
make
a
a
good
job
of
it
tonight.
So
I
work
with
a
team.
I'm
a
radio
astronomer
we're
trying
to
answer
this
very
old
question
of
are
we
alone
and
we're
trying
to
do
it
by
by
looking
for
signs
that
someone
else
has
a
technology
out
there.
B
I
think
we
need
to
start
by
reconsidering
what
we
mean
by
here
and
now
so,
like
the
rest
of
you.
I
am
here
working
at
home,
locked
down
and
in
my
case
that
home
is
in
this
house,
in
the
berkeley
hills
in
the
east
bay
and
close
to
san
francisco
bay
and
and,
of
course,
right
now,
we're
all
suffering
from
the
fires
and
the
smoke
and
the
and
the
problems
that
are
ongoing
in
in
the
peninsula
and
in
the
napa
and
sonoma.
B
But
we
are
here
and
if
we
are
at
the
altitude
of
low
earth,
orbiting
satellites,
we'd
see
ourselves
as
here
on
the
west
coast
of
the
united
states
of
america
and
since
1968,
when
bill
anders
took
this
photo
as
he
was
coming
around
the
limb
of
the
moon.
We've
been
able
to
see
ourselves
here
as
all
part
of
one
planet
floating
in
the
blackness
of
space,
and
this
became
an
emblem
for
the
environmental
movement
because
it
is
so
profound.
B
This
is
who
we
are.
We
are
all
on
this
planet
and
the
cassini
spacecraft
in
the
summer
of
2013
turned
around
and
looked
at
us
and
saw
us
here
right.
There
is
actually
a
little
white
dot
below
the
tip
of
that
arrow.
That's
us!
That's
all
of
us
and
and
we'd
had
this
view
from
1990
when
the
voyager
spacecraft,
on
its
way
out
of
the
solar
system
again
turned
around
and
caught
this
pale
blue
dock
in
a
ray
of
sunlight
and
dust.
B
That's
us
and
we're!
Actually,
here,
our
sun
is
one
of
a
few
hundred
billion
stars
in
a
galaxy
that
we
call
the
milky
way.
Now
until
now,
what
I've
shown
you
are
actual
images.
This
is
not
an
image
of
the
milky
way
because
we
can't
get
outside
of
it
to
turn
around
and
take
that
image.
But
this
is
a
galaxy
that
we
think
very
much
resembles
what
our
spiral
galaxy
would
look
like,
and
we
have
just
for
the
first
time
succeeded
last
spring
in
mapping
the
milky
way
galaxy
from
the
inside
out.
B
B
Well,
we
trace
it
back
more
than
the
centuries
of
our
families,
with
the
millennia
of
our
architecture
and
our
art
and
our
various
experiments
with
different
modes
of
governing.
We
trace
our
lineage
back
over
millions
of
years
since
humans
branched
off.
Excuse
me
from
the
great
apes,
but
we
actually
go
farther
back
than
that.
B
We
go
back
even
beyond
the
2.4
billion
years,
during
which
the
atmosphere
of
the
earth
has
been
perfused
with
oxygen
due
to
the
labors
of
these
blue-green
cyanobacteria
and
back
before
that,
back
beyond
the
4.568
billion
years.
Since
the
formation
of
our
galaxy,
we
go
back
to
a
large
cloud
of
molecular
gas
and
dust
that
was
actually
polluted
with
the
end
products
of
previous
generations
of
stars.
B
That
makes
you
who
you
are,
that
all
came
from
a
previous
generation
of
stars
that
blew
themselves
up
and
seeded
the
gas
cloud
that
would
eventually
collapse
to
the
milky
way,
and
so
it's
taken
us
roughly
a
millennia
to
piece
together
this
story
to
be
able
to
understand
that
it
really
does
take
a
cosmos
to
make
a
human
being
and
we're
not
done
yet.
There's
still
a
great
deal
that
we
don't
understand,
and
we
are
continuing
on
this
journey
asking
who
we
are.
B
Why
we're
here?
What
else
is
out
there
and
whether
or
not
there
may
be
something
else
that
also
studies
the
cosmos?
The
way
we
do
so
over
my
career
as
an
astronomer,
there
have
been
two
amazing
game:
changers
right
and
those
are
extremophiles
organisms
that
live
in
environments
that
we
couldn't
tolerate
for
even
an
instant
and
exoplanets
and
perhaps
exomoons.
B
So
the
extremophiles
have
opened
our
eyes
to
a
range
of
environmental
conditions
under
which
life
cannot
just
exist,
but
thrive.
Life
exists,
kilometers
below
our
feet,
where
there's
no
sunlight
life
flourishes
in
the
equivalent
of
boiling
battery
acid
life
lives
in
the
nuclear.
The
waters
of
nuclear
cooling
reactors
life
lives
at
temperatures
below
the
freezing
point
of
water
and
up
to
121
degrees
celsius
above
the
boiling
temperature
of
water.
So
we
have
been
really
had
to
change
our
thought
about
life
and
evolution.
You
know
our
somehow.
B
B
And
then
we
launched
the
kepler
spacecraft
in
2009
and
discovered
that,
in
fact,
there
are
more
planets
than
stars
in
the
milky
way
galaxy
and
given
the
variety
of
life
that
we
now
appreciate
by
studying
the
extremophiles,
there's
a
lot
more
potentially
habitable
real
estate
out
there
than
we
understood
when
I
began
as
a
student,
and
so
we've
moved
from
asking
whether
there's
any
real
estate
and
any
is
any
of
it.
Habitable.
B
B
So
there's
been
the
report
of
the
detection
of
phosphine
gas
in
the
cloud
layers
in
venus
and
it's
it's
it's
a
bit
controversial,
because
it's
a
single
line
of
detection
and
usually
when
we
claim
the
detection
of
a
molecular
species.
We
have
a
number
of
different
rotational
and
vibrational
states
that
identify
the
fingerprints
of
this
molecule.
The
phosphine.
It's
it's
just
one
line,
but
I
think
it's
probably
good.
There's
it's
not
a
very
crowded
region
of
the
spectrum,
and
this
is
probably
going
to
hold
up.
B
But
then
the
question
is
where
we
find
phosphine
on
earth.
We
find
that
it
has
been
biologically
mediated
that
biology
is
part
of
the
process
of
making
this
phosphene,
and
so
do.
We
really
know
all
the
geochemical
and
all
the
different
reaction
networks,
photochemical
reaction
networks
that
could
produce
phosphine
and
have
we
been
so
exhausted
in
our
study
of
all
of
those
networks
that
we
can
say
that
we
can
see
no
way
of
making
that
phosphine,
photochemically
or
geochemically
that
it
may
require
biology
to
do
this
right.
B
B
B
B
Then
we
know
it's
possible
for
us
to
have
a
long
future,
and
so
that's
why
phil
morrison
one
of
the
pioneers
of
seti
research
referred
to
seti
as
the
archaeology
of
the
future.
It's
archaeology,
because
the
signals
have
traveled
over
long
distances
and
if
there's
information
embedded
it'll
be
telling
us
about
their
past.
B
But
it's
also
telling
us
that
we
can
have
a
long
future.
Now
frank
drake
did
the
first
seti
search
back
in
1960
and
most
people
say
well,
you've
been
searching
for
decades
and
decades.
You
haven't
found
anything.
It
must
mean
that
nothing's
there.
No
it
just
means
that
the
parameter
space
that
we
need
to
search
is
vast.
B
That
a
good
analogy
is
to
say
the
volume
of
the
search
space
is
equal
to
the
volume
of
all
the
earth's
oceans
and
then
ask
how
much
of
the
oceans
have
we
explored
looking
for
these
techno
signatures
and
the
answer.
When
said
he
turned
50
10
years
ago.
The
answer
was
one
12-ounce
glass
out
of
the
oceans.
Now
10
years
on,
we've
built
new
equipment.
B
B
B
So
one
of
the
things
that
we
have
done
at
the
seti
institute
in
partnership
with
uc
berkeley
is
to
build
something.
We
call
the
allen
telescope
array,
it's
the
first
time
that
we've
built
a
large
radio
telescope
out
of
a
lot
of
small
dishes
and
a
very
large
amount
of
computing
to
put
the
signals
from
all
of
those
dishes
together.
B
So
this
is
up
near
mount
lassen.
It
has
42
antennas.
Today
we
had
hoped
to
build
350,
but
we
still
haven't
raised
enough
money
to
build
350,
but
we
use
the
allen
telescope
array
daily
to
search
for
signals
from
someone
else's
technology
and
there's
as
of
the
last
five
years.
There's
another
group,
that's
also
exploring
looking
for
techno
signatures
and
that's
a
group
at
berkeley
called
breakthrough,
listen
as
funded
by
a
pledge
of
a
hundred
million
dollars
over
ten
years
from
yuri
milner
and
breakthrough.
B
Listen,
isn't,
building
telescopes,
they're,
building
signal,
processing
back
ends
and
data
recorders
and
their
renting
time
on
existing
telescopes
such
as
this
and
as
they
rent
the
time.
What
are
they
doing?
They're,
looking
at
the
43
closest
stars
to
us
and
we're
still
actually
adding
to
those
those
numbers
we're
still
occasionally
finding
a
new
star
within
five
parsecs,
but
just
one,
that's
so
red
and
faint.
We
hadn't
found
yet
they'll.
Look
at
a
thousand
stars
across
the
all
spectral
types
within
50.
B
B
They
are
using
the
hundred
meter
green
bank
telescope
in
west
virginia
at
the
national
radio
astronomy
observatory,
they
rent
about
20
percent
of
the
time
on
that
telescope
and
they
bring
these
wonderful
data
recorders
and
signal
processing,
back-ends
they're,
also
renting
about
20
percent
of
the
time
at
the
64
meter,
telescope
in
parks,
new
south
wales,
they're
renting
time
on
the
planet,
finder
optical
telescope
at
lick,
and
they
have
written
memoranda
of
understanding
with
fast,
the
large
chinese
telescope.
That's
just
come
on
online.
B
So
there's
actually
more
seti
today
on
other
telescopes,
except
not
quite
they
were
working.
We
had
seti
at
home
was
working
at
arecibo
and
alpha
and
astropulse
as
well,
until
cable
broke
this
past
month
and
damaged
the
telescope
surface
at
arecibo,
so
everything's
off
the
air
right
now
they
do
plan
to
make
a
rapid
repair
of
that
dish
structure,
and
so
we
assume
that
seti
at
home
and
will
will
begin
operations
again
all
right
in
in
the
netherlands
and
in
the
uk
and
across
europe.
B
B
There
is
a
seti
group
down
in
apple
valley,
california,
which
has
moved.
I
think
they
moved
the
fence,
not
the
telescope,
but
there
is
now
a
26
meter,
former
dsn
telescope,
deep
space
network
telescope
outside
the
fence
at
goldstone
and
they
have
started
the
goldstone
apple
valley,
research,
telescope
and
so
students
are
using
that
telescope
to
do
a
sky
survey.
B
So
a
broad
search
that
isn't
very
deep
but
covers
all
the
sky
that
can
be
seen
from
that
location
in
southern
california
and
there's
another
low
frequency
array
in
western
australia
called
the
melora
wide
field
array
and
they
are
also
beginning
to
do
steady
observations
so
now
in
the
optical
students
at
harvard
built.
This
wonderful
optical
city
observatory
that
ran
for
years
and
years
and
the
last
students
graduated.
B
So
it
is
not
actually
operating
at
the
moment,
hasn't
been
for
the
last
couple
of
years,
but
it
looked
at
80
percent
of
the
sky
that
you
can
see
from
harvard
massachusetts
and
night
after
night
after
night
scan
the
sky
looking
for
bright
optical
flashes
that
lasted
maybe
only
a
nanosecond,
because
that's
something
that
we
can
do
with
telescopes
and
lasers,
but
mother
nature
finds
it
very
hard
to
do
so.
Optical
study
is
usually
looking
for
time
compression
bright
flashes,
although
it
also
looks
for
frequency
compression.
B
B
B
In
this
case,
the
wise
spacecraft,
which
mapped
the
infrared
sky
and
those
data
have
been
re-analyzed
looking
for
what
might
be
kardashev
ii
or
kardashev
3
type
civilizations,
kardashev
2
is
something
like
a
dyson
sphere,
which
which
has
the
ability
to
manipulate
the
total
power
output
of
its
star
and
kardash
f3,
again
bigger
on
steroids.
It
can
manipulate
the
total
power
output
of
its
galaxy,
so
the
wise
data
have
been
searched.
B
B
B
B
There's
also
an
optical
seti
program
being
done
at
the
seti
institute.
It's
called
laser
city
and
it
doesn't
use
telescopes
or
finale
lenses.
It
uses
astronomical
grade
cameras,
eight
cameras
at
each
site
and
a
grating
to
spread
out
the
spectrum,
and
it
looks
for
bright
point
source
flashes
from
a
laser,
and
we
think
with
about
15
sites
around
the
world,
we
will
be
able
to
look
at
all
the
sky
all
the
time
and
the
first
of
these
sites
has
been
implemented
with
a
half
observatory.
B
B
B
A
B
What
the
the
decadal
is
going
to
say
about
xli
finder,
but
it's
a
very
intriguing
telescope,
and
it
really
only
will
work
for
proxima
b
for
that
nearest
star
system.
So
it
may
be
too
niche
an
instrument
for
the
astronomers
to
get
behind,
but
I
think
it's
just
incredibly
clever
all
right.
So
what
else
are
we
doing?
B
Well,
the
tmt,
the
gmt,
the
european
extremely
large
telescope
downgraded
from
the
european
overwhelmingly
large
telescope.
So
this
is
the
epoch
of
40
meter
telescopes.
This
is
the
next
generation
of
40,
meter
telescopes
and
then
the
large
synoptic
survey
telescope,
which
is
now
also
named
for
nancy
roman,
will
give
us
a
snapshot
of
the
sky
every
three
days
and
show
us
things
that
are
changing.
B
B
So
I
really
enjoy
talking
to
your
astronomical
association
and
to
all
of
you,
because
I
think
that
if
I
stretch
your
minds
and
make
you
think
about
seti
and
what
we're
really
talking
about,
it
has
the
effect
of
holding
up
a
mirror
in
front
of
each
and
every
one
of
you
and
saying
see
all
you
earthlings
in
that
mirror.
You're
all
the
same
when
compared
to
something
else
out
there
and
it
trivializes
the
differences
that
we
find
so
difficult
on
this
planet.
B
And
I
think
that
that's
a
very
good
thing.
I
think
that
the
more
we
can
think
of
ourselves
as
earthlings
the
closer
we
will
get
to
finding
solutions
to
the
huge
number
of
challenges
that
we
face
on
the
planet.
Today:
water
security,
food
security,
wars
and
disease,
and
challenges
that
don't
respect
national
boundaries,
challenges
that
will
have
to
be
solved
globally.
B
B
It's
a
necessity,
so
my
final
words
to
you
tonight
are
to
give
you
a
homework
assignment
and
that's
when
you
get
back
to
all
of
the
devices
which
contain
profiles
about
yourself
change
those
profiles,
so
that
the
first
thing
that
you
say
about
yourself
is
that
you're,
an
earthling
and
then
try
and
act
like
it.
Thank
you.
A
B
B
Yes
and
our
ability
to
do
that
has
gotten
better
and
better,
as
the
computing
has
gotten
faster.
I
mean
when
we
started
doing
this.
We
had
to
actually
build
our
own
ships.
To
do.
Fourier
transforms
fast
enough
to
to
get
the
work
done
now,
in
addition
to
industry
driving
computing
to
be
faster
and
faster.
The
other
opportunity
that
we
have,
of
course
right
now
is
to
begin
to
use
neural
networks.
B
So
until
now,
we've
told
a
computer
to
analyze
data
in
frequency
and
time,
looking
for
particular
patterns
right,
okay
and
maybe
we've
guessed,
the
wrong
patterns
right.
So
what
we
can
do
now
with
neural
networks,
is
to
have
the
neural
network.
Tell
us
if
there's
any
information
content,
not
just
a
particular
pattern,
so
we're
being
able
to
extend
our
searches
looking
for
different
kinds
of
things,
and
I
find
that
a
really
exciting
opportunity.
A
B
And
so
there's
a
there's,
a
tension
between
various
parts
of
the
community
about
whether
to
process
the
data
in
real
time
or
near
real
time
as
a
way
of
checking
up
on
interference
and
human
generated
signals,
because
you
can
immediately
re-observe
and
that
drives
the
need
for
speed
or,
if
it's
better,
just
to
record
huge
volumes
of
data
and
then
process
it
offline,
multiple
times,
looking
for
different
things,
so
we've
always
at
the
seti
institute.
We've
always
been
in
the
camp.
A
B
A
B
A
A
B
And
and
you
should
also
contact
the
breakthrough-
listen
folks
in
berkeley,
they're,
they're,
very
good
about
using
volunteer
and
student
health.
My
my
challenge
right
now
is
that
since
I
was
a
graduate
student,
I've
been
collecting
papers
on
all
of
the
searches
that
have
been
made
and
two
years
ago
I
put
this
into
a
large
database
called.
B
Technosearch.Ceti.Org
and
it's
built
on
drupal
8.,
my
coding
ability
with
drupal
8
is
miserable,
and
so
now
that
I
don't
have
a
student
working
with
me
on
it,
I
could
use
some
help.
There
have
been
more
searches
that
have
been
submitted
and
I
need
to
update
the
the
database.
So
if
anybody
has
skills
in
content
management
software
and
would
like
to
help
with
this
project,
then
just
get
in
touch
with
me.
A
B
A
B
B
Then
you
need
to
estimate
what
fraction
of
those
stars
actually
have
planets
and
that's
those
factors
are
ones
that
we
we
have
a
pretty
good
handle
on
now
all
right,
how
many
on
average,
how
many
earth-like
planets
would
be
in
each
planetary
system
of
those
planets.
What
fraction
of
them
give
rise
to
life
and
of
the
life
forms
in
the
galaxy,
what
fraction
of
them
develop,
intelligence
and
finally,
cultural
evolution?
B
B
B
It's
plausible
there's
certainly
been
some
interesting
science
fiction,
that's
written
about
it.
We
couldn't
do
it
right.
We
can't
shake
anything
massive
enough
to
to
generate
gravitational
waves,
but
they
might,
and
so
yeah
people
are
actually
even
looking
at
that.
I
I
don't
know
I
haven't
seen
a
published
paper.
Yet
that
says:
we've
looked
at
this
x
number
of
gravitational
wave
events
and
analyzed
it
looking
for
this
particular
type
of
pattern
or
that
particular
type
of
pattern,
but
I'm
I
will
not
be
surprised
when
I
see
such
a
paper.
A
So
it's
just
it
could
be
just
around
the
corner
of
that
discovery.
It
might
be,
it
might
be
yeah.
I
think
that's
the
cool
thing
about
this
subject.
Right,
like
you
never
know
you
you,
you
gotta,
keep
looking
till
you
find
it
so,
hopefully
at
some
point
we
find
intelligent,
neighbors
somewhere
around
us
in
the
universe,
and
we
we
can
confirm
the
theory
that
we
are
not
alone.