In Search of ET: Should We Broadcast?

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/02/23/Jill_Tarter_The_Future_of_SETI_Research

Should earthlings actively announce their presence to extraterrestrials? Director of the Center for SETI Research Jill Tarter says that while broadcasting is inevitable, we should wait until we are more technologically and politically advanced.

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As the recipient of the 2009 TED prize, Jill Tarter hopes to empower a new generation of SETI enthusiasts. She discusses her plans to assemble a group of engineers to advise, create and facilitate a system of mass collaboration over the web and incorporate innovative data processing methods.

Through this system, Tarter predicts that we will be able to globalize the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. - Commonwealth Club of California

Astronomer Jill Tarter is Director of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute's Center for SETI Research, and also holder of the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI. She has devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings elsewhere, and almost all aspects of this field have been affected by her work.

Tarter led for Project Phoenix, a decade-long SETI scrutiny of about 750 nearby star systems, using telescopes in Australia, West Virginia and Puerto Rico. While no clearly extraterrestrial signal was found, this project was the most comprehensive targeted search for artificially generated cosmic signals ever undertaken. Tarter currently serves on the management board for the Allen Telescope Array, a massive new instrument that will eventually comprise 350 antennas, each 6 meters in diameter. This telescope will be able to enormously increase the speed, and the spectral range, of the hunt for signals from other distant technologies by orders of magnitude.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• SETI
• search
• extraterrestrial
• intelligence
• alien
• life
• first
• contact
• communication
• radio
• waves
• telescopes
• listening
• drake
• equation
• fora.tv
• foratv
• fora
• tv
• jill
• tarter
• commonwealth
• club

[arcanist9]

What if the Borg hear?

[globalmagnet]

if the aliens are anything like mankind we are screwed!

[DonCramon]

@DoubleMisery you obviously havent seen any of the newer studies and discoveries about the universe.. see Jill Tarters talk on TED and you might understand how enormous the universe is... we know about as much about the universe as if you toke a glass of water from the ocean.. if you look at that glass of water and dont see any fish in it, would you then just say that there is no fish in the sea?

[ancalites]

@DoubleMisery You're pretty ignorant. Oxygen is the third most common element in the universe, and water is one of the most common molecules, abundant througout our solar system alone. The universe is also an incredibly big place with billions upon billions of planets. Asserting that we're the only show in town is the height of presumption.

[DoubleMisery]

did she just say... that we are the youngest technology ... ?!?!?!

and who would be out there haha ... there is no oxygen .... there is no water ... no life ... no piece of shit !! ..... THERE IS NO LIFE IN OTHER PLANET STOP SEARCHING FOR EMPTY

[STEVEGET]

TV and Radio signals will not be detectable light years away,

Pioneer 10 and 11 still receive command control signals, on the edge of the Solar System, which could be picked up in years to come.

Both of these Spaceships have a gold plaque, with info about the Earth.

[freedeanna]

I know it's been said before, but shouldn't we search for terrestrial intelligence first?

[oscarian]

if you broadcast, geeze, use light huh? what, fill the Earth with light. Oh, well we've done that right? Okay, so let's just hold on for a few millenia and see what goes down?

[RagingBubuli]

I f given a chance, I will broadcast DAFT PUNK songs.

[istvanklein]

Because of the enormous possible timescale, it is very unlikely that there is another civilization close enough for us to be able to detect that's comparable to us in terms of technological development. Chances are that, if they exist, they are anything between hundreds of thousands and hundreds of millions of years ahead of us and have communication methods that are simply beyond our comprehension, making them virtually invisible for us.

[apostolisxa]

@globalmagnet lol