A Public Talk with Jill Tarter
A Cosmic Perspective: Searching for Aliens, Finding Ourselves
Thursday Evening, July 22, 2021 - 5pm PT/8pm ET
This free public talk with Jill Tarter, Astronomer and Chair Emeritus for SETI Research at the SETI Institute took place via a Live Streaming YouTube event open to the public. Attendees of the ASP2021 Summer Symposium enjoyed an exclusive attendee discussion after the talk.
See details below.
This special public talk is free and open to the public with a suggested sliding scale donation.
Important Note: This event was part of the ASP Summer Symposium. Those who registered to attend will receive an exclusive link to the event which includes a special discussion afterwards just for Symposium registrants.
A Cosmic Perspective: Searching for Aliens, Finding Ourselves
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 currently a debate about the detection of Phosphine in the clouds of Venus, and whether this might imply biology. There is a vast amount of other potentially-habitable real estate to explore beyond our solar system, and there are many plans to do just that. The 21st century will be the century in which we will find some answers, this will be your century.
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.
