SETI Live

How do scientists actually search for extraterrestrial intelligence?

Astronomer, professor, and Drake Award winner Jason Wright joins host Beth Johnson on SETI Live to discuss his new textbook, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Theory and Practice. The book brings together the science, methods, and history of SETI into a single framework for students and researchers.

SETI has evolved dramatically in the past few decades—from early radio searches to modern investigations of technosignatures, including laser signals, infrared waste heat, and other possible evidence of advanced civilizations.

In this conversation, we explore: Why SETI now deserves a full academic textbook The many ways scientists search for alien technology The history and philosophy behind the field What would actually count as a real detection How researchers are training the next generation of SETI scientists

Learn more about The Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center: https://www.pseti.psu.edu/

Access the textbook: https://iopscience.iop.org/book/mono/978-0-7503-4796-9

(Recorded live 19 March 2026.)

Saturn's largest moon may have had a violent birth.

New research led by SETI Institute scientist Matija Ćuk proposes that Titan formed when two earlier Saturnian moons collided and merged hundreds of millions of years ago. This dramatic event may explain several long-standing mysteries in the Saturn system—including Titan's unusual orbit, the origin of the strange tumbling moon Hyperion, and even the relatively young age of Saturn's iconic rings.

Using computer simulations, researchers found that a once-stable Saturnian moon system may have become unstable, sending an outer moon on a collision course with Titan. The merger would have resurfaced Titan—erasing many ancient craters—and scattered debris that later formed Hyperion. The resulting changes to Titan's orbit could have destabilized smaller inner moons, triggering collisions that eventually created Saturn's rings.

Join SETI Institute Social Media Manager Beth Johnson and planetary dynamicist Matija Ćuk as they explore this new model for the Saturn system's evolution, what clues led scientists to propose a moon-moon merger, and how future missions—like NASA's Dragonfly mission to Titan—might test this dramatic hypothesis.

Could Titan really be the survivor of an ancient cosmic crash?

📄 Paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ae422c

📰 Press release: https://www.seti.org/news/saturns-moon-titan-could-have-formed-in-a-merger-of-two-old-moons/

(Recorded live 12 March 2026.)

Astronomers have unveiled a novel technique for detecting faint signals from stellar and exoplanetary systems — potentially opening new pathways in the search for extraterrestrial technology and natural astrophysical phenomena alike.

In this episode of SETI Live, host Moiya McTier sits down with radio astronomer Cyril Tasse to explore the method described in Nature Astronomy. How does it work? Why is it different from traditional radio searches? And what kinds of signals could it reveal that we've been missing?

Radio waves from distant stars and planets are incredibly faint and often buried in noise. This new approach rethinks how we process and interpret complex data, potentially improving sensitivity to subtle, structured signals.

RIMS press release: https://observatoiredeparis.psl.eu/the-detection-of-radio-bursts.html

RIMS paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02757-7

Stellar storm press release: https://observatoiredeparis.psl.eu/evidence-of-a-massive-stellar.html

CME video: https://youtu.be/bHlOYFn0RUM

(Recorded live 5 March 2026.)

Dr. Franck Marchis, Director of Citizen Science at the SETI Institute and co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of SkyMapper, and Dr. Lauren Sgro, Outreach Manager at the SETI Institute, update us about citizen science with the Unistellar network in partnership with the SETI Institute. They discuss making 15,000 observations in 2025, pending confirmation of a planet candidate, Comet 29P outbursting, observing rocket bodies, and preparing to observe Artemis II. They also answer your questions about our program and discuss recent highlights. (Recorded live 27 February 2026.)

Astronomers may have found the missing link in the story of the Milky Way's most common planets.

In this SETI Live, host Moiya McTier is joined by exoplanet scientist John H. Livingston to explore a new discovery that helps connect the dots between small rocky worlds like Earth and the larger "sub-Neptunes" that dominate our galaxy.

Using cutting-edge observations and statistical analysis, researchers have identified a population of planets that appears to bridge a long-standing gap in our understanding of planetary formation. For years, astronomers have known that planets of sizes between Earth and Neptune are incredibly common—but their origins and evolutionary paths have remained puzzling. This new result may finally clarify how these worlds form, evolve, and sometimes transform.

What does this mean for:

• How do planetary systems assemble?

• Why does our Solar System look so unusual?

• The search for habitable worlds beyond Earth?

Join us as we break down the science, the methods, and the bigger implications for exoplanet research and the search for life.

Press release: https://www.abc-nins.jp/en/2026/01/08/10010/

Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09840-z

(Recorded live 26 February 2026.)

Our Cosmic Consciousness residency artists daniela brill estrada, Bart Kuipers, and Julie-Michèle Morin, discuss an art-science collaboration that imagines how language might emerge from alien worlds. Hosts: Bettina Forget and Cosmic Consciousness residency advisor Gregory Betts.

Join SETI AIR program Director Bettina Forget for a conversation with Cosmic Consciousness artists in residence daniela brill estrada, Bart Kuipers, and Julie-Michèle Morin, joined by residency advisor Gregory Betts. Together, they will discuss Exoplanetary Poetry, an art-science collaboration that imagines how language might emerge from alien worlds.

Using atmospheric data from real exoplanets, the team trains an artificial intelligence to write poems alongside human collaborators. The resulting texts are translated back into chemistry, forming multisensory installations where reactions generate visual forms, textures, and scent. How can molecules become metaphors? What does it mean to co-author with a nonhuman intelligence shaped by planetary science? And can poetry help us think differently about life beyond Earth?

Exoplanetary Poetry: https://exoplanetarypoetry.space/

Sara Walker: https://search.asu.edu/profile/1731899

Learn more about the SETI AIR program: https://www.seti.org/air/

(Recorded live 19 February 2026.)

Are we finally uncovering hidden pulsars at the center of the Milky Way? Join host Beth Johnson and William J. Welch Postdoctoral Fellow Karen Perez for a deep dive into a newly announced discovery of a possible pulsar near our galaxy's core. Using data from the Breakthrough Listen Deep Pulsar Survey and observations with the NSF Green Bank Telescope, researchers are probing one of the most extreme and mysterious regions in the Milky Way. The Galactic Center is a chaotic environment dominated by the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. For decades, astronomers have predicted that many pulsars should orbit this region — yet very few have been detected. Why are they so hard to find? And what would discovering more of them mean for testing gravity, mapping the Galactic Center, and understanding extreme astrophysics?

Press release: https://news.columbia.edu/news/researchers-announce-discovery-possible-pulsar-milky-ways-center

Paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ae336c

Datasets: https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/research/group/breakthrough-listen/deep-pulsar-survey-results-galactic-center

(Recorded live 12 February 2026.)

Humanity is heading back to the Moon—and Artemis II is the mission that makes it real. In this SETI Live, host Simon Steel is joined by Dr. Caitlin Ahrens, assistant research scientist at NASA Goddard, to explore how Artemis II will prepare the way for future astronaut missions. Artemis II isn't landing on the Moon—but it is laying the groundwork. From mapping the lunar environment to understanding how radiation, extreme cold, and surface conditions affect both spacecraft and humans, this mission is a crucial scouting expedition. The data gathered will directly inform how astronauts live, work, and explore when boots return to lunar soil. Together, we'll unpack how lunar scientists are using Artemis II to test assumptions, close knowledge gaps, and turn decades of robotic exploration into a sustainable human presence beyond Earth. This is the Moon as a proving ground—not just for technology, but for the future of deep-space exploration. (Recorded live 2 February 2026.)

In this SETI Live episode, host Simon Steel (Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center) chats with evolutionary biologist Philipp Schiffer (Worm Lab) about one of the most astonishing discoveries in modern biology: scientists have revived a microscopic worm that had been frozen in Siberian permafrost for roughly 46,000 years. These nematodes entered a state of cryptobiosis — a kind of biological "pause" — and came back to life when gently thawed in the lab. They didn't just wiggle; they fed, reproduced, and gave us a window into life's extreme resilience. Simon and Philipp dive into the role of cryptobiosis, how radiocarbon dating places these organisms back in the late Pleistocene when woolly mammoths roamed, and what it means for the limits of suspended animation. This is biology meeting deep time — and you're invited to stretch your imagination along with the science. (Recorded live 29 January 2026.)

For more than two decades, millions of volunteers turned their home computers into a planet-scale telescope, donating idle processing power to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence through SETI@home. That effort ended in 2020—but the data never stopped speaking. Now, UC Berkeley scientists have taken a fresh, rigorous look at the vast SETI@home archive and identified around 100 intriguing signals that warrant closer scrutiny. In this SETI Live, host Beth Johnson is joined by Eric Korpela (UC Berkeley), one of the scientists behind the original SETI@home project and the new analyses. Together, they'll unpack how citizen science made this work possible, what these signals actually are (and are not), how researchers sort cosmic noise from something genuinely interesting, and what this next phase of investigation means for the future of SETI. Are any of these signals evidence of technology beyond Earth? Probably not—but "probably" is exactly where the science gets interesting. Join us for a deep dive into distributed computing, signal vetting, and what happens after the screensavers stop. (Recorded live 22 January 2026.)