EP14 Astrophysicist Jill Tarter on SETI and Technosignatures

Jill Tarter received her Bachelor of Engineering Physics Degree with Distinction from Cornell University and her Master’s Degree and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley. She served as Project Scientist for NASA’s SETI program, the High Resolution Microwave Survey, and has conducted numerous observational programs at radio observatories worldwide. Since the termination of funding for NASA’s SETI program in 1993, she has served in a leadership role to secure private funding to continue the exploratory science. Currently, she serves on the management board for the Allen Telescope Array, an innovative array of 350 (when fully realized) 6-m antennas at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, it will simultaneously survey the radio universe for known and unexpected sources of astrophysical emissions, and speed up the search for radio emissions from other distant technologies by orders of magnitude. Jill is a frequent speaker for science teacher meetings and at museums and science centers, bringing her commitment to science and education to both teachers and the public. Many people are now familiar with her work as portrayed by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. Introduction to Jill Tarter and the SETI Institute 9 minutes Building a Better Drake Equation 12 minutes The SETI Protocol and the False Positive of 1998 12 minutes Binary Stars and Adding Neural Networks to Signal Detection 6 minutes Extremophiles, Exoplanets, and Technosignatures 7 minutes Breakthrough Listen, Laser SETI, PANOSETI 6 minutes METI, Funding for SETI, What SETI Needs 13 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring Jill Tarter, Ph.D. Keynames for EP14: Jim Rutt, Jill Tarter, SETI Institute, SETI Research, SETI@home, NASA, "Contact", Santa Fe Institute, Enrico Fermi, Frank Drake, Stuart Kauffman, Philip Morrison, Lynn Margulis, International Academy of Astronautics, IAA, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Bill Broad, The New York Times, Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Seth Shostak, SETIleague.org, Laurance Doyle, Arthur C. Clarke, Karl Schroeder, David Wolpert, Freeman Dyson, Robin Hanson, Jason Wright, Nikolai Kardashev, Breakthrough Listen, Parkes Observatory, Robert Ferguson, LaserSETI, PANOSETI, Stu Boyer, Buckminster Fuller, Gordon Moore, David Brin, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker Keywords for EP14: Jim Rutt, Jill Tarter, SETI, astronomy, astrophysics, Fermi Paradox, spectrometry, Drake Equation, aliens, extraterrestrials, outer space, planets, livable planets, exoplanets, stars, binary stars, Bayesian probability, Kepler space telescope, evolution, evolutionary theory, DNA, symbiosis, Greenbank, Project Phoenix, Rio Scale, Rio Scale 2.0, neural networks, machine learning, extremophiles, radiodurans, Dyson shells, Dyson sphere, Tabby's Star, technosignatures, biosignatures, megastructure, TRAPPIST-1, WISE Satellite, Kardashev Type, Allen Telescope Array, Square Kilometer Array, MeerKAT, FAST telescope, radio telescope, spigot telescope, TMT, LSST, Moore's Law, METIAstrophysicist Jill Tarter talks with host Jim Rutt about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), technosignatures + related projects. Starting with the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation, they discuss the hunt for life in the universe. While discussing the SETI protocol for determining when a credible signal has been received, Jill Tarter describes the "false positive" incident in 1998 that nearly lead to the announcement that Earth had been contacted by aliens. The two scientists then discuss the state of the art in astrophysics, including extremophiles, exoplanets, Breakthrough Listen, PANOSETI and Laser SETI -- a camera array in 12 locations with 8 cameras per location that should be able to observe the entire sky 100% of the time!