Astronomer Explains How SETI Searches for Aliens | WIRED

we don't know whether there is life of any kind beyond Earth but I think that the 21st century is the century in which we're going to answer that question my name is Jill tarter I'm the director emeritus of SETI research at the SETI Institute we're here to talk about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence or actually the search for extraterrestrial technology we've been at this SETI business since 1960 and you might think that we must have searched everything but in fact we've searched almost nothing a total volume that we need to explore set that equal to the volume of all the Earth's oceans well since 1960 we've actually searched maybe a hot tubs worth of the ocean really not very much it's such a huge universe out there and we've observed such a small part of it do I believe in aliens it's not the right question we're talking about a scientific exploration whatever anyone believes has no relevance you want to know what is odds are reasonable that the chemistry and physics that provided biology on this planet may have done so elsewhere we have always asked are we alone we've wanted to know who's over the next hill what's out there I think we should try and answer it if they help us answer it because they come here okay just this morning jet fighters raced aloft over ripe Patterson Air Force Base at Dayton Ohio to intercept a reported saucer returning pilots swore that it was a life that could not have been a reflection and that it evaded them at a very high rate of speed unidentified flying objects there there I've seen one they're not necessarily related to alien spacecraft there's just no evidence that holds up that says that things that are seen on camera for example on the Navy radars have anything to do with extraterrestrials baseball I can't explain claims of alien spacecraft seen by radar I can say that that's new technology it isn't necessarily very stable yet the most often reported UFO is the planet Venus people when they look at a dark sky don't really understand what they're seeing they're conflating perhaps their desires to see an extraterrestrial spacecraft with whatever is actually happening there until about 25 years ago high-altitude military airplanes saw this bright lights above thunder clouds that were totally unexplained we didn't understand until we got satellites with high time resolution cameras looking down at their that lightning travels up as well as down and now we have a whole new physics of sprites and elves above thunder clouds so that was a bit of new physics that was observed not understood sometimes conflated with alien spacecraft and I'm sure that a lot of that is happening today whether or not an extraterrestrial visitor is benevolent or potentially a threat is something of which various people have various opinions Stephen Hawking is known for saying you know when Columbus showed up in the new world it didn't work out really well for the natives but I think that's that's the wrong analogy the ability to travel interstellar distances and actually show up at our doorstep is amazing a huge technological gap that we can't reach at this point so I think anything that they could need or want they can manufacture in their own home system also to have become that advanced technologically I think they have to be a lot older than we are and I think they've had to outgrow the violent and competitive characteristic that probably was part of their infancy I don't have any reason to worry about an older technology that manages to come here I think what they're interested in is curiosity is about us we don't know what they might look like they're gonna look like the planet they evolved on we have evolved on a planet that is illuminated by a Sun so we have eyes that perceive light had we evolved on a planet that's circled a small red dwarf star we might have different sensors our eyes might not see visible they might sense heat and infrared had we evolved on a planet that had more gravity because it was bigger than the earth we might be flatter had we evolved on a planet that was mostly ocean we might have gills it doesn't matter to me what they look like and I think nature is probably a lot more imaginative than I am the difference between life and intelligence actually is getting more difficult to discern we used to have this very very privileged opinion that we were intelligent and the rest of the planet was just alive we're beginning to understand the the breadth of intelligence across a huge line of species extremophiles are forms of life that live in conditions that we humans for example couldn't tolerate at the bottom of the ocean where the magma is boiling up they live actually in channels within ice frozen and ice it is the ability of life to live in environments which would be lethal instantly to humans that encourages us to think that there's more habitable real estate out there than we might have thought when we started the SETI quest we didn't know whether there were planets around other stars now we know thanks to ground-based telescopes and the Kepler spacecraft that there are more planets than stars in the Milky Way galaxy every star has at least one planet statistically that was something we didn't know until just a couple of years ago the discovery of exoplanets everywhere the discovery of extremophiles on earth it has made this whole search for intelligent technological life elsewhere seem much more reasonable and realistic what we say we're doing is looking for extraterrestrial intelligence but in fact we've decided to use technology as a proxy for intelligence we look for some kinds of signals that are generated that nature can't manufacture we look for large astroengineering kinds of structures and we assume if we found the technology that there is some intelligent technologists who created it techno signatures can be something that it leaks or is the result of engineering done for their only purposes or techno signatures can be deliberate attempts to make something that's detectable over interstellar distances astrobiologists tend to be interested in finding bio signatures things that they can look for within our solar system on Mars on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that would indicate biology bio signatures we talk about the Moon or Mars or other planets in our solar system or beyond the solar system no to date we have no evidence of life if we find life we need to ask question about whether that life is related to us whether an early rock from Earth got chipped off and seeded Mars or vice-versa early in the solar system the formation of the solar system it was very violent and rocks were exchanged between Venus Earth Mars and the idea that one of those rocks might have contained some kind of life that in a condition a spore that could survive the transference from one body to another within the solar system that's panspermia in physics we count one to infinity if we have one example it could be singular the moment you find a second example then you know it's universal so if we find a second genesis of life in our solar system independently involved a new evolution of life we will know that life is everywhere out there we're listening we're trying to say is there anyone out there whose technology we can detect SETI started observational e in 1960 to listen for radio signals that were confined to a single channel on the radio dial we have evolved from there much broader receivers bigger radio dials many many more channels and we're listening for different kinds of patterns in frequency and time in the future we'll bring in artificial intelligence and neural networks to look for different kinds of patterns that aren't natural we are listening we are actually not transmitting deliberately at the moment so there's a controversy in the SETI community about whether we should just listen or whether in fact it's necessary for us to deliberately transmit I have a problem with the transmitting bit we sometimes manage two year plans or five year plans but we just can't manage 10,000 year plans and I think if you're going to transmit you have to do so with a determination that you're going to do it for a long time it's something you've got to commit to and I don't think we're grown-up enough yet as I said to do that but when and if we do become a long-lived stable technological civilization then I think transmission continuous transmission in all directions or to a very large number of targets that are potentially habitable hosts for other civilizations that becomes a plan that we take on in the future when we can commit to long term planning we're too young now we should listen first see what's out there you've got lots and lots of problems on this planet why should we be spending any money at all on trying to find out whether there are other creatures out there and the answer is because looking for life and intelligent life beyond this planet has the effect of holding up a mirror and that mirror shows all of us on this planet shows us all as the same when compared to something else out there we are all the same and I think that this is incredibly important for our long-term future because the challenges on this planet that we face do not recognize national boundaries they are challenges that are going to have to be worked on globally in a cooperative fashion and so the more that we see ourselves not as individuals not as Americans not as Europeans and honest Chinese the more that we see ourselves as Earthlings as humans the more likely we are to be able to find a way to manage these global challenges so I think SETI even if we never detect evidence of someone else I think thinking about it talking to people about it getting the world to encompass that sort of cosmic perspective is something that will help us manage to get to a long future [Music]

Channel: WIRED

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Id: UVlUy77d-MU

Length: 14min 29sec (869 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 01 2019