Jill Tarter Talk Donation- July 22

We thank you for your donation in anticipation of this exciting free event as well as for your support of the programs of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 

This special virtual public talk with Jill Tarter, Astronomer and Chair Emeritus for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, will be a Live Streaming YouTube event open to the public.

Your email donation reply will include a link to the YouTube Streaming event.

Important Note: This event is part of the ASP Summer Symposium. Those who register to attend the Symposium will enjoy an exclusive attendee discussion after the talk.

A Public Talk with Jill Tarter

A Cosmic Perspective: Searching for Aliens, Finding Ourselves

Thursday Evening, July 22, 2021 - 5pm PT/8pm ET

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.