SETI Live

Exoplanet discoveries have been piling up faster and faster over the last decade, limiting announcements of new discoveries to the strange, unusual, and unexpected. One unexpected type of planet is the possible Hycean world -- hot, water-covered worlds with hydrogen atmospheres larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune with sizable habitable zones. With the addition of JWST's capabilities, previously discovered exoplanets are now being analyzed for their atmospheric composition, and the results are intriguing. In a new paper accepted for The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the atmosphere of an exoplanet known as K2-18 b was found to contain carbon dioxide and methane, adding the world to the list of possible Hycean planets. Additionally, a molecule called dimethyl sulfide, which on Earth is only produced by life, was possibly detected.

Join communications specialist Beth Johnson as she speaks with lead author Nikku Madhusudhan, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge, in a SETI Live at a special time. (Recorded live on 21 September 2023.)

Preprint of the paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.05566.pdf

Ask anyone interested in space science, and you will likely also find a person influenced in some way by science fiction, whether they grew up watching Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, watching movies, or reading books. The genre has grown and expanded over the centuries, reflecting and inspiring changes in the world, our technology, and even our dreams of exploration. Now, Ariel Waldman - filmmaker, explorer, and former NASA advisor - has written an accessible book featuring dozens of interviews that "takes readers on a journey to the farthest depths of space".

Join communications specialist Beth Johnson in conversation with Ariel as they discuss her new book, Out There: The Science Behind Sci-Fi Film and TV. (Recorded live on 24 September 2023.)

We follow up with SETI Artist in Residence Jonathon Keats about his project The Library of the Great Silence, an installation art project that addresses one of the implications of the Fermi Paradox. If the cosmos is only sparsely populated by intelligent beings that implies that at some point in their development almost all technological societies encounter a barrier they cannot cross. To counter such a dystopian prospect, Keats proposes an intergalactic lending library to research planetary futures. Branches of this library have already been installed at the Allen Telescope Array and at museums and universities around the world. Join SETI AIR Director Bettina Forget in conversation with Jonathon Keats and find out what's in the library! Recorded on 7 September 2023.

An enigmatic cosmic entity has been consistently beaming radio waves to Earth every 22 minutes for over three decades, perplexing the scientific community. Identified as GPM J1839−10, this celestial body is believed to be a fading star emitting energy from its poles. Yet, intriguingly, its spin is so leisurely it seems implausible for its existence, marking it both incredibly stable and unusually slow. We're thrilled to have Natasha Hurley-Walker, the leading radio astronomer from Curtin University in Australia, who spearheaded the research in conversation with the SETI astronomer and Chief Scientific Officer at Unistellar, Franck Marchis. Together, they'll delve into this baffling find, initially spotted in archival data from 1988 and later confirmed through 2022 observations using the MeerKAT array. Could this star be something new? Maybe it changes what we think we know about other stars. Or could it be a signal from aliens?

Record live 24 August 2023.

Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06202-5

SETI Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Daedelus imagines the first 10,000 days after first contact with an alien civilization and puts those imaginings to music. Daedelus calls this post-detection era the 'Xenopocene', which also serves as the title of their newly released album. In this conversation with SETI AIR Director Bettina Forget, discover Daedelus' creative process and what inspired them during their two-year residency with the AIR program, plus listen in on this fascinating album that weaves influences of Gustav Holst, Sun Ra, Alice Deejay, and Amon Tobin. Recorded live 17 August 2023.

Listen to Xenopocene: https://daedelusmusic.bandcamp.com/album/xenopocene

Tune in to this week's SETI Live broadcast, beamed directly from Devon Island in the High Arctic. This exceptional locale serves as a remarkable analog, mirroring key environmental features of both the Moon and Mars to help prepare for their exploration. Dr. Pascal Lee and his team have embarked on their annual expedition to study the local geology and microbiology, and their relevance to the Moon and Mars. Beyond their scientific mission, they're putting spacesuits, drills, and cutting-edge technologies through rigorous trials, all destined for potential deployment in the human quest to explore the Moon and Mars.

Join SETI Institute CEO Bill Diamond as he discusses this exciting research and fascinating location with Dr. Lee, live via Starlink from the Arctic.

Recorded live on 10 August 2023.

Frontier Development Lab (FDL) is an applied artificial intelligence (AI) research accelerator fostering collaboration among researchers, scientists, and engineers across diverse fields. FDL aims to address paramount challenges in space and Earth science through cutting-edge AI and Machine Learning applications. FDL is a collaborative effort of the SETI Institute, NASA, the Department of Energy (DoE), and prominent private sector partners.

Discover the immense potential of AI for space exploration, Earth sciences, and humanity as SETI Institute CEO, Bill Diamond, engages in a compelling conversation with Jason Talley from the DoE's Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office. Together, they delve into the transformative possibilities that AI brings to these critical domains, pushing the boundaries of innovation and exploration.

Recorded live 3 August 2023.

In an unprecedented achievement, citizen scientists have set a new record for the SETI Institute and Unistellar, comprising the highest number of observers providing data on a single event. Amateur astronomers participating in the SETI Institute's and Unistellar's Cosmic Cataclysms program conducted a groundbreaking observation of supernova (SN) 2023ixf. The observations, which began just one hour after the supernova's first known appearance, have generated the longest continuous light curve of this supernova gathered by citizen scientists that has been published to date.

Join Simon Steel, Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research, as he discusses this record-breaking citizen science project with researcher Lauren Sgro.

Press release: https://www.seti.org/press-release/record-breaking-team-citizen-scientists-contribute-data-pinwheel-galaxy-supernova

Research note: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ace41f

Recorded live 27 July 2023.

We will present the first on-sky demonstration of the Fibered Imager foR a Single Telescope (FIRST) instrument at the Subaru Telescope. Using techniques of aperture masking and spatial filtering, FIRST combines the power of spectro-interferometry to deliver high contrast capabilities and spatial resolutions beyond the reach of traditional coronagraphic instruments.

We will explain the 'pupil remapping' technique - the heart of the FIRST instrument - and its practical applications. This process divides the telescope pupil into sub-pupils, enabling simultaneous measurements of all baseline fringe patterns. Our researchers tested this instrument on two types of targets: a point source (Keho'oea - α Lyrae) and a binary system (Hokulei - α Aurigae), achieving a contrast and stability sufficient to study the close surroundings of those stars.

The successful demonstration of FIRST signifies a significant step forward for future interferometric instrumentation on extremely large telescopes, opening new observing capabilities in the visible wavelength range at the Subaru Telescope.

With the SETI Institute's Franck Marchis and Sebastien Vievard, exoplanet instrumentation scientist on SCExAO.

Recorded live 20 July 2023

If an alien civilization wanted to communicate with other civilizations throughout the Milky Way, the galaxy's core holds potential as a strategic site for a beacon. Until now, radio SETI has primarily dedicated its efforts to the search for continuous signals. A new study sheds light on the remarkable energy efficiency of a train of pulses as a means of interstellar communication across vast distances. This marks the first-ever comprehensive endeavor to conduct in-depth searches for these signals. Join us in discussion with Dr. Vishal Gajjar, a SETI Institute astronomer working at the Allen Telescope Array.

Paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/acccf0

Recorded live 13 July 2023.