A team of scientists and engineers from the SETI Institute, Impossible Sensing, NASA JPL, and other institutions will test their innovative robotic laser system on a deep-sea expedition aboard the E/V Nautilus. The mission, called InVADER (In-situ Vent Analysis Divebot for Exobiology Research), aims to advance technologies to explore, characterize and sample the seabed here on Earth. In particular, InVADER’s Laser Divebot will find marine minerals and catalog biodiversity in the seabed faster and more affordably than ever.

Join communications specialist Beth Johnson as she chats with SETI Institute research scientist and project lead Pablo Sobron about this new mission and the future of remote sensing.

Press release: https://www.seti.org/press-release/invader-mission-test-its-robotic-laser-divebot-deep-sea-expedition

There was a total solar eclipse in Australia on Thursday, April 20 (which was Wednesday, April 19 here in California).

Join SETI Institute CEO Bill Diamond with Madhulika (Lika) Guhathkurta, PhD Senior Advisor for New Initiatives, GSFC/HPD Program Scientist/Heliophysics, NASA HQ. Lika is in Australia for the eclipse and will talk to us about what we can learn from this phenomenon and why eclipses are so special. Recorded 18 April 2023.

A new NASA mission to Saturn’s giant moon, Titan, is due to launch in 2027. When it arrives in the mid-2030s, it will begin a journey of discovery that could bring about a new understanding of the development of life in the universe. This mission, called Dragonfly, will carry an instrument called the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS), designed to help scientists hone in on the chemistry at work on Titan. It may also shed light on the kinds of chemical steps that occurred on Earth that ultimately led to the formation of life, called prebiotic chemistry.

Join Dragonfly Deputy PI and DRaMS instrument lead Melissa Trainer in a conversation with communications specialist Beth Johnson, as they discuss this upcoming mission and the potential science discoveries DRaMS could bring. Recorded on 13 April 2023.

More information: https://www.nasa.gov/dragonfly

As research teams around the world prepare for the launch of two separate missions to our 'sister planet' Venus, other scientists are spending their time looking through the data already collected by previous missions. Take, for example, the Magellan spacecraft, which mapped the surface of Venus from September 1990 through October 1994 using synthetic aperture radar. Last month, Science published a new paper detailing how scientists compared two radar images space eight months apart and discovered a volcanic vent that had grown and changed shape in that time period.

Join co-author Robert Herrick from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and communications specialist Beth Johnson as they discuss how the discovery was made, how it changes what we know of Venus, and what the new information could mean for future Venus missions. (Recorded live on 6 April 2023.

Paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm7735

Author and book designer Rebecca Demarest will be featured on this episode of SETI Live, along with astronomer and SETI Research Scientist Paul Dalba. The two will delve into the upcoming Exotopia expedition, an experimental sci-fi narrative that invites participants to embark on imaginary journeys to study extraterrestrial life on actual exoplanets within our galaxy.

The forthcoming voyage will transport us to TOI-1452 b, a super-Earth exoplanet situated roughly 100 lightyears from Earth. TOI-1452 b orbits a red dwarf star within its Habitable Zone, an area where there is a possibility of liquid water on the planet's surface, given the presence of a protective atmosphere. Although scientists have some understanding of TOI-1452 b's characteristics, there is still a great deal of uncertainty surrounding this newly discovered world.

The Exotopia expedition will explore this enigma and offer travelers the opportunity to illustrate their own adventure using AI-generated art. Join us as we discuss the unique confluence of astronomy, art, sci-fi, and AI technology related to this distinctive storytelling experience.

When pondering the probability of discovering technologically advanced extraterrestrial life, the question that often arises is, "if they're out there, why haven't we found them yet?" And often, the response is that we have only searched a tiny portion of the galaxy. Further, algorithms developed decades ago for the earliest digital computers can be outdated and inefficient when applied to modern petabyte-scale datasets. Now, research published in Nature Astronomy and led by an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, Peter Ma, along with researchers from the SETI Institute, Breakthrough Listen and scientific research institutions around the world, has applied a deep learning technique to a previously studied dataset of nearby stars and uncovered eight previously unidentified signals of interest.

Join Senior Scientist Franck Marchis in conversation with lead author Peter Ma, co-author Leandro Rizk, and their supervisor, SETI Institute astronomer Cherry Ng, as they discuss the usefulness of machine learning, their recent findings, and the potential for the future of SETI. (Recorded live 23 March 2023.)

Paper: https://seti.berkeley.edu/ml_gbt/overview.html

Astronomers learn about the universe by looking up, but the closest, most fascinating and most important (to us) astronomical object is below our feet. As we discover more and more planets in our galaxy, the importance of understanding and protecting our own “pale blue dot” becomes ever more critical. Join Professor Adrienne Cool, astrophysicist at San Francisco State University and founder of Astronomers for Planet Earth and Jessica Agnos, co-founder, in a conversation about the universe, the Earth and why astronomers have a unique perspective on one very special planet. Recorded live on 8 March 2023.

The NASA DART mission impacted Dimorphos, the moon of near-Earth asteroid Didymos, on September 26, 2022, reducing its orbit by 33 minutes. Citizen astronomers around the world contributed crucial observations to quantify the impact's effects and understand our ability to alter an asteroid's path for planetary defense. Learn more from SETI Postdoctoral Fellow Ariel Graykowski on the implications for the future of planetary defense.

Nature paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05852-9

The Juno spacecraft launched on August 5, 2011, and arrived at Jupiter in 2016, where the mission began collecting data on the gas giant. In January 2021, NASA announced that the spacecraft's mission had been extended to September 2025. The extended mission’s science campaigns expand on discoveries Juno has already made about Jupiter’s interior structure, internal magnetic field, atmosphere (including polar cyclones, deep atmosphere, and auroras), and magnetosphere. Juno’s extended mission also includes flybys of the moons Ganymede, Europa, and Io.

Join Dr. Scott Bolton, Director of the Space Science and Engineering Division at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Principal Investigator of Juno, as he chats with communications specialist Beth Johnson about this important mission, what we have learned, and what comes next.

More information: https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/

Recorded live 16 February 2023.

New research suggests that a lack of a stable asteroid belt around these common, small, and cool stars may make their exoplanets less habitable for life. Join us in conversation with lead researcher Anna C. Childs to explore the implications of this research and the future of the search for alien life. Learn more about the most common type of star in our galaxy and the potential challenges in finding habitable exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs.

Paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ac9052

Recorded live on stream on 9 February 2023.