Bye.
Okay, let me.
They that I am a great okay with it, recording. I usually start by introducing myself.
But you've done such a good job. We don't need to do that. It's just
generally I work with teams that use radio and optical telescopes to try and find evidence of someone else's technology.
and I'm the one that's not wearing the headphones in this picture
I
and formally retired.
But I still spend my time cheerleading for all things involved with Seti.
The important thing for me now, rather than actually working on individual searches, is to try and establish an endowment
for this field of research, so that it can go forward
into the future
for as long as it might take. Because this is indeed a very large endeavor.
Hmm.
Excuse me, i'm having some problem here, not being able to advance my slides. But
let's try this. Okay. So before
we talked about trying to find them, whoever or whatever they might be. I think it's important to put us into context
a a bigger context than we normally think about in our daily lives. So
actually, Where are we? And when are we?
Well, we're here right, all of us, that are looking at these screens. We're here, and for many of us that meant for years
of working from home. and in my case that was from this house here in the Berkeley Hills.
in the San Francisco Bay area.
and from the altitude of low earth orbiting satellites.
I would have pointed to myself as being here on the west coast of the United States in California.
but since 1,968, when Astronaut Bill Anders took this Christmas Eve photo
of Earth rise we've been able to envision ourselves
in the larger space here.
This is our first opportunity for a truly cosmic perspective
changed how we see ourselves
and became an emblem for the environmental movement. So this image is incredibly
powerful and important.
In the summer of 2,013 Cassini spacecraft, which was orbiting. Saturn at the time, looked back and saw us here.
and I hope you got the memo, and you went outside, and your rest clothes, and you waved to Cassini to participate in this selfie of all of us
on earth
at the tip of that arrow.
Long before that, in 1,990 the voyager, one spacecraft passed by Neptune.
and then it turned and looked homeward
to make this image of a pale blue dot
caught in
the
segment of of light and dust. I mean, this is us. This is all of us here.
So
now we know that we are here in a larger scale in the boon docks of a large spiral galaxy.
far from the center.
We know our son is only one of about 400 billionstars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
And no.
this is not an image of the Milky Way Galaxy.
since we can't get out of sight of it
in order to take such a picture. it's an image of a large spiral galaxy.
That is what we thought the Milky Way would look like if we could
go Take such a picture.
So more recently using radio telescopes which can see the center of our galaxy. In spite of the gas and dust that lie between us. In the center.
we could observe
methanol and co gases
that
gave us picture of the Milky Way Galaxy from the inside out. and
after 5
1,000 h of radio telescope observations. this is the best Testament of what the Milky Way Galaxy would look like from a distance. and indeed
it is somewhat like M. 101 which we were thinking of before we could actually make this image.
So if you
pull back farther
and look at the Hubble deep field image of our universe.
you can see that the Milky way. Galaxy is here.
and it's one of about 200 billiongalaxies in the observable universe.
The fact that some of these galaxies
are smaller and fainter than others
makes us remember that as we look farther out in space.
we're looking farther back in time.
so not only are we here, but we are now. and we have a really limited sense of time. and we forget, I think.
that we are intimately connected with far away places and far away times.
So today my mission is to try and change your perspective
to start considering humans and our history in a larger context.
so
our perspective
must also encompass
that we're now in the current epic of the universes 13.8 billionyear, continuing evolution
from the Big Bang to big brains. And beyond. we're not yet completely comfortable with this image
and this larger context of here and now.
because, in fact, we've only directly observed about 4% of the total male matter, energy, density in the universe.
Cosmologists struggle with dark matter, dark energy, and gravity itself. and at the smallest scales and the earliest times
it's not yet possible to reconcile quantum mechanics and gravity. So this
the most self-consistent perspective of here and now ever assembled. But it is one that will most probably be subject to change and self correction in the future.
So we humans trace our lineage, not back, not just back through the centuries of our families. not just back through the millennia of human civilization with its art.
and it's many experiments in governance. and we trace our heritage not just back over the millions of years since we branched off from the great apes.
and not just back, but 2.4 billionyears during which the Earth's atmosphere has been perfused
with oxygen, thanks to the photosynthetic labors of cyanobacteria.
No, not just back to the formation of the sun and our solar system 4.6 billionyears ago. But back another 4 0r 5 million years
beyond that.
to a giant molecular cloud that was contaminated by the winds of wolf, ray stars and the debris of supernovae explosions and radio nucleotides from neutron star collisions.
the iron atoms in the hemoglobin molecules of your blood.
the calcium in your bones and teeth
these elements were all fused, literally cooked up
deep within old massive stars that ended their lives in catastrophic explosions.
We call them a supernova.
I blasted off
the outer layers of the stars.
leaving behind remnants like this
recent example.
remnants that became incorporated int0 0ur solar system just as this supernova remnant will be incorporated into a future generation of stars
and planets and perhaps life.
So from this perspective it actually takes a cosmos to make a human. You all you owe
all that you are, and everything that you see around you to the nucleosynthesis, the cooking of heavier and heavier elements from simple hydrogen.
It took place in the heart of a long dead star that blew up at the end of his life. So as Carl Sagan
used to remind us. we're literally made of stardust.
And if we're really intent on looking for life beyond Earth. Well, that's what Astrobiology is all about.
It seems to me that we should be looking for both
bio signatures and techno signatures.
and there are 3 ways that we might discover life beyond Earth in the 20 first century. and I think that the odds that one or more of these strategy
we'll pay off. Theons, I think, are very high. We could directly discover it.
We could detect it's work product. or we could export it
the under.
When attempting to find evidence of life beyond us. we're forced to think about ourselves in a much larger context.
a cosmic perspective.
And i'm hopeful that you will leave this gathering.
having internalized your own cosmic perspective.
because that could be the first step along a path
to solving the global challenges that we are all facing
in our world today.
So for the past 5 decades. NASA's been discussing missions capable of finding life beyond Earth by looking for Bio
and Esa and other space agencies have been doing this as well.
So they're talking about looking for the chemical fingerprints of life
on planets and moons with our own solar system.
and in the atmosphere of exo planets.
The Viking Lander was the first attempt to show us just how hard this would be.
There are now a number of ground-based facilities and space-based missions on the drawing board.
Recent decanal reviews have been favorable to these enterprises.
So looking for life beyond Earth is now something
that isn't so far out and fringy
It's something that our community recognizes
as being worthwhile.
So at the moment. We can only say that telescopes capable of imaging exoplanets and spectroscopically examining their atmospheres.
for I don't know, like else those telescopes are going to have to be big.
otherwise they can't do that job.
A lot of research is going on in the Astrobiology community
to understand what might be the best candidate bio-signatures.
and how to interpret them
and recognize false positives
There's a great deal yet to be known at the moment. and we really don't have any smoking gun
so we understand that bio-signatures may be ambiguous.
and we will want to have as much environmental
in historical context as we can in order to draw conclusions.
Take, for example, the recent report on the discovery of phosphine in the cloud layers of Venus. First of all, it was just a single line radio detection.
So is the molecule correctly identified.
And then all chemistry
pathways and that works.
Have they really Have we considered all of them for phosphine production
on earth, we can only find phosphine in anaerobic environments.
and biology is part of the process.
So have we really found evidence of life in the clouds of Venus.
No
more extensive modeling now suggests that the line, the single line
was, in fact, misidentified.
and it's probably more likely to be s0 2
then fossil so false alarm. and it's probably the first of many that we will deal with.
Recently the detection of Methane in the cry of volcanic plumes of Saturn's Moon. Enceladus
has also intrigued scientists.
The quantity of methane is too large
to be explained by the sort of
abiotic production mechanisms that we see operating here on Earth.
However.
if there is biological
activity
hosted by these high hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean.
the observational
can be reproduced in model systems.
We're currently planning on space Missions
to fly through the cray of volcanic plumes
escaping from the cracks of
the moons of Europa and Enceladus. How will we be able to unambiguously decide that any molecular fragments that are found?
I do the biology
and not just organic precursors.
Ambiguity. Ambiguity
is no small issue
and adds considerably to the complexity and the costs
of such missions that are being considered here
in the Us. And in Europe and in China and India.
So ambiguity good, perhaps.
be reduced if we decided to look for
mathematicians rather than microbes.
So when attempting to find evidence of life beyond earth. we're forced to think about ourselves in a much larger context.
a cosmic perspective.
Oh, i'm hopeful
that you'll leave this meaning.
having internalized your own cosmic perspective.
because that could, in fact, be the first step along a path to solving the many global challenges facing our world today.
No
searches for techno signatures
face the same problems as searches for bio signatures. They need to deal
with false positives, and the difficulty of conceiving
and building instruments to find what we don't. Yet know.
despite the difficulties of this type of research.
I think it absolutely belongs
within the portfoli0 0f searches for life beyond Earth.
So techno signatures as well as bio signatures.
If you think about
deliberate signals created by a technology. there are 2 types. There are signals that look almost natural.
so that the telescopes we build to do. Astronomy could stumble on them.
And then there are signals that look nothing like Mother Nature's product at all.
that they are obviously engineered. So what's it? Example of the first almost natural type? Well, of course, we know about them for a long time.
and we know that pulsars change their periods.
but we've never found a pulse on that changed its period to another value. and then went back to the original pulsar.
But we could engineer that that is a possible
most of the exoplanets that we are finding
Today we find via the transit
method. That is, we see the shadow
that a planet
makes
on the surface of its star as it passes between the star
and our telescopes. And indeed, in making these transit measurements.
there is enough information
in the higher orders of that light curve
at ingress and egress.
so that we could tell the difference
between a round shadow which would indicate a planet
and some other shape that could indicate
astro engineering.
And so we should be looking in great detail at the data that we have from transit surveys. And here's another example that I like.
Suppose you were
in the vicinity of a Cepheid variable star.
a star that expands and gets brighter, and then cools and gets dimmer
with a very robust and stable period.
Well, now, suppose
with your advanced technology.
use scooted up next t0 0ne of these Cepheid variables.
and as it was contracting and cooling, and
just getting ready to expand again.
You zapped it with some kind of energy source, and made it expand prematurely.
So now you have a Cepheid
with a normal period. and also a shorter period.
In fact, you have
a dot and a dash. You've got a Morse code
that can be seen to the nearest cluster of galaxies to the verbal cluster.
And this might be an almost natural indication of someone else's technology.
As for the obviously engineered signals. Well, since the 1,900 sixtys we've been thinking about looking for
radio signals that are compressed in frequency.
So they show up at a single frequency on the radio dial. That frequency could change because of acceleration between
our receivers and their transmitters.
But
that makes a very clear, obviously engineered signal, and we've been looking.
and here's another one. More recently.
We now thought about not only compression and frequency.
but compression in time. And so it might be that you excuse me.
Hello!
Sorry I was just spam. I did forgot to turn my phone off.
so we could, in fact.
detect
a single pulse of light energy in a nanosecond of time.
and we're beginning to look for exactly that sort of
obviously engineered signal and Finally.
we have begun thinking about using
single-frequency monochromatic lasers to accelerate small spacecraft
to a significant fraction of the speed of light in order to explore our nearest exoplanetary systems
so
the reason to talk about these 2 different kinds of
potential techno signatures is that
in the case of something that's almost natural
we should just do astronomy
in every way that we can possibly think about
observing new elements of the observational phase space. So do astronomy.
But in order to find these
obviously engineered signals. we have to realize that the astronomers are not going to build the receivers. That we need to do this
because they're looking for things that are on the natural astrophysical sky. So in order for us to find
these engineered signals.
we need to build our own telescopes.
and then we need to use them systematically to conduct surveys of the sky.
Okay.
there. Finally, okay.
So
Seti. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been part of NASA
since 1,975. It's also been gaining traction in Isa
and other countries around the world.
But when we started thinking about setting and in the early seventies. we realized that we didn't know
whether there were planets around. Other stars, had no information in 1,975 about that.
So we set up a working group. So NASA always does. And that working group
explored
means of detecting exoplanets. And, in fact. that's how that whole science got started. We built after our first workshops we published a big book called Sp 400 and 19.
We also managed to win the Golden Fleece award from Senator Prox, Meyer Alright.
more than one. We actually got 2,
and in
on the 5 hundredth anniversary
of Columbus's Discovery of the New World
we launched a 10 year program called Hrms.
And
exactly one year later.
Senator Brian not
prox my it was Senator Brian
terminated the funds for Hrms. and we were kind of dead in the water. but we had already, in 1984
incorporated
as a nonprofit the City Institute.
and we incorporated it as a way to save NASA money.
and it was there when termination happened in 1,993.
And so we carry on
raising the funds privately
to do this work.
and we began what we called Project Phoenix. which lasted for 10 years. and the name came from the idea
that we were rising from the ashes of Congressional termination.
So we had some workshops at the end of the last century. It seems strange to say that now.
and we published a large book called City 2,020,
and the
ideas and the recommendations in contained in that book were
that we should expand the wavelength coverage
beyond the radio
into the optical and the infrared. and that we should build our own telescope so that we could be observing 24 7, and not just having to
get time one way or another
on the astronomy communities, telescopes.
And then we said.
You know something that we've been missing up until now is the ability
to find and
verified
signals that might be transient. So to find these transients.
we knew that we need to look at all this guy
all the time for
some kind of transient signal.
So. going by the second bullet.
we actually did build our own telescope. and it's called the Allen Telescope right?
It was first operational in 2,007.
Our initial idea was that we would build 350 of these 6 meter dishes
to be able to scan the sky all the time
with enough sensitivity to detect the equivalent
of terrestrial leakage signals.
and we built very wide band
feeds and receivers for these telescopes so that they could cover simultaneously
from one t0 10 gigahertz. That's the
terrestrial microwave window, where we have the clearest view
on to the cosmos.
And now that we know
that all stars have at least one planet. We've gone away from our original concept of observing the
planets that the Kepler field showed us
t0 0bserving
the entire sky.
So this is the first telescope that was ever built and designed for doing setting.
It has a very large field of view, because the individual elements are small.
So here's something you should be familiar with. Right, the Andromeda Galaxy.
and if you look
for scale. I. The moon is half a degree across in our sky. and the Andromeda Galaxy is 2 and a half degrees across.
No, until last year
we had a large telescope at Arecibo Puerto Rico.
and that large telescope had a very small field of view. And even when we built focal plane arrays
that made simultaneously observations of nearby points in the sky.
That's how much we could see
with that large telescope.
But if you got a 6 meter telescope.
your field of view is huge.
and that's the way that you can survey
4 techno signatures. right?
So we built. What is the fact? A radio camera
with 250 pixels and 1024 colors or frequency channels.
And because you're manipulating the signal in this wide field radio camera you can do a snapshot. There are enough baselines that you don't have to allow
the earth to rotate and synthesize
your field of you. You get it all at once in a snapshot.
and in addition to looking at the whole field of view. you can do what we call beam forming.
and if there are particular objects of interest within that field of you. then you can, in fact, phase up the beams. In the in the case of the Allen telescope array.
add 2 different frequency pans, and look at those objects.
At the same time you're
surveying the field.
and there's another trick
that you can do by combining data from many telescopes from an interferometer.
and that is, you can put coefficients on the various voltages as a function of time
coefficients that mean
that you can actually actively know out
signals coming from somewhere in that field of view signals that are, for example, our own technologies
that are getting into the data
and making it harder and harder to find someone else's technology. So an interferometer allows you to actively know.
So we got this telescope already up and running in 2,007,
and we started by observing the
what we called habitat stars, graduate student and I meeting a catalog of stars.
most likely sun, and most likely to have planets.
But then, of course Kepler
delivered us a huge slew of exoplanets, and you can see to the right of the image.
There's a blob. and that's the Kepler field. 100 square degrees that Kepler told us about.
So we
observed that very early on.
with a lot of
time and then, now that Kepler has shown us
that indeed. all stars have at least one planet.
We've expanded our search
to the nearest 20,000 stars.
most of which are dim red dwarfs. and
and als0 0bjects that are of special interest. That we've
decided are interesting for other reasons. Like the Trappist, one system
with it 7 terrestrial planets.
You can see in this chart that there's a
horizontal strip where there are n0 0bservations.
because, pointing in those directions.
points us directly into the geosynchronous melt where we have launched
a large number of satellites that are so strong relative to some
extraterrestrial source
that they, in fact. can burn out our receivers. So we, as to looking in those directions.
So that's what the Study Institute has been up to. But more recently
£900 gorilla, and this area of research has been
funded by Eury Miller and the breakthrough. Listen.
Prize.
which is sponsored
has given
a 100 milliondollars over 10 years
to continue city surveys.
and they do it by renting time
on large telescopes.
so that money goes directly to telescope time
like the green bank telescope
in West Virginia.
the parks telescope in New South Wales
in Australia.
and the planet finding telescope in San Jose, California.
and
Phoenix has been renting time on all of those in order to conduct
with
dedicated specific backends.
They've been trying to find evidence of someone else's technology.
They are also implementing
500 meter, fast telescope in China.
The meerkat precursor to the square kilometer array in South Africa and in Western Australia
and back ends for the
venerable general bank telescope in the Uk.
So
they these are sort of the biggest players at this time. but there are other searches.
Unfortunately.
we can no longer do Seti at home or Alpha searching the voltage output of the Orcibo telescope
since it
collapsed last year.
But we are using a low frequency tiles
in the Netherlands and in Sweden.
working together to find signals.
There's a group in Metigina in Italy
that uses a 64 meter telescope
and
the Jpl. Deep Space network
telescopes. Jpl. Was once a partner
in this's. Hrms. Program.
and Jpl was interesting and interested in doing this Guy's survey.
where, as NASA Ames was interested in targeting particular stars.
So
Jpl is finally back in the game with what's called the G
Goldstone Apple Valley Radio telescope.
telescope that was moved outside the fence of the Dsn.
So that's local students
can conduct a sky survey every day.
and occasionally
a gentleman in Japan
organizes optical and radio telescopes all around the world
to point at exactly the same object
for short periods of time. It's project, Dorothy. It is
pulling together
15 telescopes in different countries. So that's some of the other city that's been going on.
But what I'm really excited about. He is
something that's called cosmic right. It's a tortured acronym
but it's being deployed, as we speak. on the 27 elements of the very large array in Sekoro, New Mexico.
and it's being deployed in this commensal observing mode.
So the astronomers get data from each of these telescopes and they have. A correlator
makes images of the radio sky. Whatever frequencies.
But Andrew Simian
has been leading a project that takes
these data streams, makes a copy of them and puts them into signal processing equipment
that is intended
to look for artificial technological signals
optical setting. Well, we got that started. Here's a project that was built by students at Harvard or a Sky survey
the data from the Tech Observatory.
Yes. re analyzed for Seti.
There's an optical amateur telescope
at we'll get there in Panama.
and
we do archival searches of data, for example, searches through all of the wise spacecraft of data that, in fact, looked all around the sky.
and we're looking for
stray heat. A mission
from Astro engineering projects with that wise data.
And there are some new
telescopes that are being commissioned right now.
So Veritas is an older array of telescopes that is used to look for.
So we didn't change any of the hardware on Veritas.
But we did change the software.
so that instead of looking for streaks for many pixels that light up on the sky.
we are now also looking for single pixels. the same pixel from all 4 telescopes.
because that, in fact, could be an artifact
from someone else's technology. Shelley, right at Uc. San Diego
is building something called
right. Imagine a geodesic dome, Buckminster, Fuller kind of dome.
and in each one of those
frames
you put a large Cornell lens.
and then you can focus
large amount of sky 10,000 degrees.
that is, that are observed by all these different segments.
Focus that with a lens onto a very sensitive detector.
And now you can do a sky survey 10,000 degrees at a time.
And finally at the Seti Institute we're working on something called Laser setting
right, and
if we raise enough funds to put these very simple instruments that
use filters
to break down the information coming on the sky.
if we can build something like 12 0bservatories around the world. We currently have 2.
Then we could be looking
and all this guy all the time
for someone else's technology.
and in the future. Well, we've got the Jws team, which is launched finally safely.
and a small amount of it's time. We'll be looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets
for evidence of biology.
the Nancy Grace, Roman telescope.
and either
something called hammocks or Louvois in the future
which will actually be big enough
and powerful enough
to image
exoplanet atmosphere around nearby stars
and
looking for bio signatures.
But we also can use those data
to look for techno signatures in Europe. We have the aerial
telescope coming on.
and we want to look at the data coming from that as well.
So here's a funny concept that hasn't yet been funded.
but designs and R. And D. Are going on
for something called the exo-life finder.
It looks like to me a combination of a Ferris wheel and a radio telescope.
But the way it's built it would be able to distinguish
continents from oceans.
but only around the nearest system. Proxima.
So I don't know if
the community
of scientists and philanthropists
have the stomach to build an instrument that has a single purpose which is to look for
each front real estate on proximity.
I don't know if this will ever get built. but it is a very clever and intriguing idea.
and in the future we have the Tmt. The GMT. The European, extremely large telescope
which is downsized from the original overwhelmingly large telescope.
We have the large synoptic space telescope
is there any panel study from Shelley right Veritas observations. and eventually
figuring out how to do commenceal observing
with
the fast telescope in China, 500 meters across.
and meerkat the precursor
and the square kilometer array
eventually in South Africa and Western Australia. We want to use data from all these telescopes
and less. Let's say less certain because we've just gone through a decatal review in the Us. But something called the next generation.
So not just 27 telescopes.
hundreds of telescopes spread over the southwest
and got favorable mention. We hope
that will be coming on air before too long.
and if we ever could get that exol life finder concept working
Well, we could
turn a single telescope into an array.
Oh, dishes
and phase them all up
so that we would actually have
with this thing. That's something like 80 meters across. We'd actually have enough sensitivity to find the infrared waste heat
of the cities on distant exoplanets.
And then, of course, the day after tomorrow. We're all all radio astronomers are looking forward to
the square kilometer right?
So instead of making 3 beam form beams, they'll be more like 250,
and they are able, they will be able to probe
individual stars that have been identified by.
So
we're talking about a 100 times the sensitivity of
signal detection that we have today.
And, as you can see.
we can actually probe with enough sensitivity
in the vicinity of the earth.
And, in fact, if they have something that is equivalent to the arecipo planetary radar.
we could see that
1,500 t0 50000 light years away.
So we're really really excited about these new capabilities.
But
some things will never change. Wherever we at the Seti Institute are observing, we will fly this flag of earth
that was
designed
by a farmer in Iowa, James Cable, and he had hoped that they would take this to the moon for the Moon Landing
didn't happen, but we still use that flag every time.
and we also plan for success.
All right. So wherever we are observing.
you can bet that there's a bottle of champagne on ice
waiting to be opened when we succeed.
and our observations are getting more difficult, at least the radi0 0bservations. But it's also true in the optical
that our own technologies are blocking
part of the spectrum
where it becomes impossible
t0 0bserve through
this terrestrial interference.
So Rossetti, the funding history has been
extremely
episodic and uneven.
but today, given the pledges by breakthrough, listen and eerie Miller.
we can look forward to a number of years
with stable funding, and i'm hopeful that during those years we will be able to raise an endowment
that can keep observations going
for tens, hundreds, thousands of years, as long as we need to.
in order to continue looking at this guy.
And so with this episodic funding, you can see here a patchwork of different
observational strategies that we have tried different projects that have been operating.
and over the time that we've been doing Seti.
the technologies have changed enormously back in 1,992. We had to build our own chips. because nothing else could do. Fast, Fourier transform
fast enough. So we were full custom
design and implementation in 92.
And now the technology has moved on, driven by many, many different
applications.
until we are now looking at using all of the 27 antennas
on the very large array
with Andrews cosmic
project.
Huh? Yeah. we said. He turned 50,
and I had to give a talk at the Vatican Science
complex.
And so I said, All right.
What are we trying t0 0bserve? There are 9 dimensions of this search, faith.
frequency, directions, polarization, modulation.
all of that.
and how much that 9 dimensional space
have we observed to date when said he was 50.
So here
think about the earth's oceans. and out of all of those. all of that water at 9 dimensional ocean.
We actually and said he was 50, and
searched one glass of water.
But now at 60 right.
it's up to more like a small hot tub.
So we're getting better
and better all the time. But there's a lot more to do.
and it isn't just Moore's law
that, in fact, has been working on many of the different individual components of the search. But it's also the fact that we
have built 10 dedicated telescopes. We are doing commensal observations on more telescopes, at more wavelengths.
And we're now beginning to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to look for patterns in frequency and time
that indicate information content.
So we're no longer having to ask the computers. Look, computer, Can you find this particular pattern?
And if you do. We're going to be excited about the possibility of techno signatures.
Now, we can now ask the computers
with machine learning. Is there any pattern
in these data that woods suggest intelligence.
So that's for me, is a really huge step.
And so, lastly.
we're
considering
exporting life beyond Earth.
We're going back to the moon. We want to go to Mars, want to visit asteroids
with these various projects.
and so we could, in fact, be the source of life beyond earth.
and I really enjoy
the opportunity such as I am
doing right now of talking to groups like you.
because when
I give such a talk
I think it actually forces you
to think about yourself
in a larger context. both space and time.
And I think that city
is holding up a mirror to all of us on this planet
a mirror that trivializes the differences among us.
I think that city has the ability. 2 show us ourselves
in a different broader context.
and it's summed up here by Caleb Sharf. from Columbia University. who tells us that on a finite world. a cosmic perspective isn't a luxury.
It's a necessity
so given that necessity. I hope you go bad
to all of your digital on devices
that contain a profile of yourself. and in that profile
ahead of it to say
first thing that you're in.
and then start acting like it
because we've got lots of challenges
to work on. Thank you.
Krisztián Vida: Well, thank you for this wonderful presentation.
So if you have
Krisztián Vida: any questions in the audience
Andras Holl: as usual, please either write it in the chat box or
Krisztián Vida: raise your hand, and I will ask you to unmute yourself, and then you can ask the question
Krisztián Vida: in real life.
So thank you again.
Can you see the the chatbooks, or shall I?
Okay.
I've got it back somewhere. But i'm not looking at the chat.
So could you read the question to me?
Krisztián Vida: Yeah, sure. So from. or the on. Technical civilization on earth, is still rather young, and, pessimistically speaking. might not last much longer into the future.
Krisztián Vida: If this is a general fate of other possible technical civilizations, it will seriously limit our ability to find them. What is your view on this?
Oh, my view is that you're absolutely correct.
If the rule out there is that civilizations evolve, start up on planets around other stars, and then do themselves in
before they get competent at longevity and husbanding their planet. Then you're right. There's not going to be anybody for us to find
but that's really one of the reasons that I give
talks to so many groups.
because, as
we think about life beyond Earth, as we think about doing, setting. it just forces us
to have a bigger perspective, and to be willing and eventually able
to take on the challenges of husbanding this planet.
so that all life has a long future.
No. If this doesn't happen elsewhere. If we don't do it here.
Well.
that's not going to be very conducive to finding evidence of anyone else's technology.
So yeah. oh, change your profiles. Say that you're an Earthling, and start acting like it.
Is there another question?
Not yet quite.
Krisztián Vida: Maybe people are still writing. I don't know, but I will take the time off
Krisztián Vida: it, probably going.
Robert Szabo: Yeah, I have a question. Thank you for this wonderful talk. I was just wondering you briefly mentioned that. But what about these satellite constellations, like the starlings one how to what extent.
Robert Szabo: to those large number of of satellites, interfere with the we decided search
in terms of optical and also in radio. It's a serious threat to such kind of of of research.
Yeah, we're closing our skies right?
It may be
that in order to be successful.
We actually have to build
a spacecraft
that orbits above all of this stuff in low Earth orbit, and has a huge shield
behind it to keep out the noise
from the thousands of satellites that are
being launched. or we may have to go to the one place
that never has the earth in its sky, and that's the lunar farside
being aware.
Oh, that special
place in our solar system. We've been talking at Seti for a long, long time about how you might build telescopes on the lunar far side.
Good idea!
But you also need to know
that NASA, at least, and possibly other space agencies. our planning to build satellites.
that orbit
exactly above the lunar far side. So we need to work with them
upfront
on spectral hygiene. In particular. what we've been asking
is, could they
develop
dual frequency capability for their transmitters.
so that at least at some time we will have access to all of the spectrum.
I will lose a band of frequencies around whatever transmitter they're using.
But then we can recapture
that part of the spectrum when they switch to a second transmitter frequency.
You know more more equipment, more
expense. possibly more opportunity for failure. But we are at least talking to them.
so that we don't lose
before we even start of that
very optimal real estate
on the far side of the man.
Robert Szabo: Thank you very much.
Krisztián Vida: Maybe we have one more question. I mean? Why.
Krisztián Vida: what do you think of Dean, and that for us people they should be afraid of? It's the terrorist us
Krisztián Vida: So I think the
Krisztián Vida: questions referring to the
3 Body Problems Series.
Krisztián Vida: I I believe you.
Yes, that's free body problem gave me 9 min for a long time when I read those books.
So here are my thoughts. There's nothing necessarily
profound. but it seems to me that if they can get here
to cause any of the mischief that some of these scenarios posit.
If they can get here, then they're technologically much more advanced than we are. because we can't currently go there. So
how do you get to be a technologically advanced civilization. I think you have to
the old. I think you have to manage
to stay around long enough to invent these new technologies.
and
if you're already old.
I think that I agree with Stephen Pinker
that cultural evolution is leading us to be kinder and gentler
than we have been in the past.
So that makes me think
that perhaps
we don't really have much to fear
from very advanced technologies.
I mean they could come and eat us for lunch.
Possibly.
But I think that by having
survived
their technological adolescents. that. in fact. they are likely not to be
a threat to us.
Possibly they could be
a source of new physics new
information. But that's just my opinion.
Hi, Ben Elmar, I see your hand.
but you're muted.
Krisztián Vida: Yes, I
Krisztián Vida: able to unmute other people because of Gdp on. Okay. bye.
Hello!
Almár: And I'd like to ask something. They're living in a rather difficult period.
Almár: Everybody knows
the
Almár: and and because of the possibilities of this kind of conflict everywhere, do you have any
Almár: signature already
Almár: that the cooperation between countries like United States and China.
Almár: or it's Russia? Have they developed in a very bad way? And and in this this
Almár: and but what is the place of setting? Is a cooperation? It's a cooperation it's setting possible in the future. This
Almár: this is
Almár: to
I mean, there's no Federal
documents that lead to cooperation.
But in fact, individual groups the group at Berkeley.
The Berkeley Seti Center has gone over and work with China
on the fast telescope and help them develop receivers that would be capable.
doing setting
operations. So there's no global
agreements.
We just
you know you were part of it. We developed this post-detection protocol, starting in the 1,900 and Eightys.
and it says.
basically treat Zetti as any other
observational sciences
and do it well the way you would do any other science.
But then it has a special cause which says that no attempt to return a message
will be undertaken until there is collaboration and buy in from all of the countries who are part of
that discussion which was his ongoing through the International Academy of Astronautics.
So nothing
formal at the Government level
but informal attempts to get
scientists around the world to cooperate.
Almár: Thank you.
Krisztián Vida: We have one question from a student.
Krisztián Vida: possibly to watch the student learn who wants to work in something. Do you have any internship program?
There are for us students.
There is a research experience for undergraduates, both at the Seti Institute
and at Berkeley, but they Don't take
applications from outside of the Us.
There are.
nevertheless.
if you go to the website at the Seti Institute or Berkeley's setting website.
you'll see people
interested in having someone help them with their projects.
It's it's not huge right. We don't have a lot of money to do this, but there are opportunities. and you should
look at those web pages.
find the names of people who are doing projects that could benefit from your help
and contact them directly. It's something.
You have to be proactive.
Krisztián Vida: The next question. Do you like any ideas in any a science fiction books or movies on
Krisztián Vida: how to communicate with it? Intelligence, or even how to recognize them.
Yeah. Well, I gotta say contact this, My, go to moving on this subject.
That's actually
weathered. Very well. It's a couple of decades ago that we may. That movie.
the other Science fiction movie that I really enjoy is the arrival. And there's a concept in there
that if you're going to write
in circles right, not in straight lines, but in circles. You have to know the future.
and I find that to be a really intriguing concept.
So yeah, i'm still a fan of lots of Science Fiction.
Krisztián Vida: as we probably all are.
Krisztián Vida: it's all right. I don't think there are
Krisztián Vida: any more questions it
There, there are 2. Thank you for the asking questions.
Krisztián Vida: Okay. So in in this case, thank you again for
Krisztián Vida: accepting our invitation
Krisztián Vida: and Texting and 40, and I still can
the answer
Krisztián Vida: and i'll be with you. Thank you again. Have a nice day.
Okay. Thank you for having me. Okay.