Munirul-Haq Raza | News Editor
Featured Image: Jill Tarter, Bernard M. Oliver Chair of the SETI Institute, discusses life in our solar system and beyond. | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Jill Tarter, current Bernard M. Oliver Chair of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, California, recently facilitated the discussion “The 21st Century: The Century of Biology on Earth and Beyond” at York.
The talk focused on the search for possible life in our solar system and beyond. Tarter emphasized that we should not expect life beyond our planet to be the same as that of Earth.
She began by studying extremophile organisms, which appear to be able to survive under extremely harsh conditions previously thought to be inhospitable to life. For Tarter, life beyond our planet may look very different in terms of potential organisms’ chemistry and biology.
She likened the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life to conducting archeology in space, commenting that we should also be uncovering the signatures by artificial intelligences created by intelligent civilizations.
Further, Tarter questioned how much of the current search for signals from intelligent extraterrestrial life forms uses equipment designed to look for such signals. To date, we have only searched a rather small region of the universe within our human history.
The event wrapped up by referencing possible upgrades to equipment SETI is to receive.
During the Q&A segment, Tarter invited participants to deliberate the ethical implications of possible first contact with alien civilizations, whether or not we should respond to those signals, and how—including SETI’s protocols on the issue.
When asked about astrobiology being interdisciplinary, she agreed education should emphasize the interconnectedness of chemistry, astronomy, and biology when it comes to topics such as astrobiology.
Tarter continues: “We are attracting the best and brightest students, as is such a variety of layers to go here, and so many new things to learn.”
