Calling all Aliens_1of2_Search in Space
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00:00They are masters in their fields, brilliant scientists with an unusual mission.
00:09They want to track down intelligent life forms in space.
00:19The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is an attempt to find signals coming from
00:25planets orbiting distant stars that have patterns like the kind that we send out in our radio
00:35and TV.
00:40And if there is E.T., we will detect it.
00:43Not only that, but we will understand the universe in a way that we don't understand
00:48it today.
00:50Maybe there is another creation in another place in the universe.
00:56There's no chance that there's not other intelligent life out there.
01:01It's just too big of a universe.
01:03There's a huge solar system out there.
01:08We're just one part.
01:09There has to be more.
01:10You really don't want to be thinking about it.
01:15If they do come and advance technology and come down here destroying everything and everybody.
01:24It's a really profound message to either say that we're alone or this is just one unique
01:29fluke of nature.
01:45It's just before dawn in the Sierra Nevada.
01:59Rick Forster is setting out early because today he'll get a new tool for his toolbox.
02:05A six meter diameter satellite dish.
02:11See you later.
02:12Bye.
02:15Rick lives in northern California, far removed from people, cities and flight routes.
02:26In an old Ford pickup, he drives every morning to his unusual workplace, a listening post
02:33searching for signals from extraterrestrials.
02:41Rick is one of a small elite group of scientists promoting perhaps the most bizarre research
02:46of all.
02:47Those involved call it the search for extraterrestrial intelligence or SETI for short.
02:57What we're looking for is something like a radio broadcast, which is beamed out in space
03:04and pretty much aimed at us.
03:07So what's required here is an intelligent civilization with technology advanced enough
03:13to be able to produce such a radio tone.
03:16What's furthermore required is that they're actually actively trying to contact us.
03:31The hope for SETI lies in the radiation of space.
03:35Antennae receive a signal that sounds like a radio that's not tuned into a station.
03:41Rick hunts for signals that are contained in this noise.
03:45And he's just discovered one.
03:52SETI researchers are looking for a signal that could originate from a highly developed civilization.
03:58Sometimes it takes months to get something worth checking out.
04:02And then the monitoring computer sounds the alarm.
04:07This is precisely the kind of thing that the SETI algorithms are designed to dig up out of the noise.
04:13In this case, this is not anywhere near the noise level.
04:18All the background points are much weaker than the strength of this particular signal.
04:23So this is very close to what we would expect to see.
04:28Unfortunately, it does not pass the test.
04:31The frequencies are right in a band that we know is very contaminated by terrestrial satellites.
04:38This is not a transmission from an extraterrestrial civilization.
04:44But where are the presumed ETs hiding?
04:47Is this a wild goose chase?
04:50Or is the electronic equipment just not sensitive enough yet to track them?
04:56To answer this question, Rick Foster and other scientists are building the most sensitive ear of all time.
05:03The Allen Telescope Array.
05:06Where once there stood only one antenna, in a few years hundreds should be listening to space.
05:12After an intensive search that resulted in nothing more than false alarms in the past, SETI urgently needs a few successes.
05:22According to the researchers' plans, this is what the telescope should look like.
05:27350 antennae, all connected to one another.
05:31From the many incoming signals, a supercomputer will calculate a data stream that the researchers can then analyze.
05:39The great eavesdropping assault on life forms of space can begin.
05:52There have been no definite detections of extraterrestrial intelligence signals so far.
05:58But SETI has never had a dedicated instrument of their own to use for the search 24-7.
06:04So this new array will provide that.
06:07It will be used for the search full time.
06:10And this search could provide an answer to the question, are we alone?
06:15Contact with extraterrestrials within the next decade?
06:19Such a concept demands an extraordinary amount of imagination.
06:23And yet, numerous scientists consider it probable that intelligent life has developed in the depths of the universe.
06:31Our solar system is only one of billions in the Milky Way.
06:35Our system is a tiny little speck on the edge of our galaxy.
06:39Are there neighbors living on any of the other specks?
06:45The Milky Way, too, is just one of billions of galaxies in space.
06:49Lots of room for cosmic neighbors over the Milky Way.
06:53But what if we were the only ones living on the Milky Way?
06:57The Milky Way, too, is just one of billions of galaxies in space.
07:02Lots of room for cosmic neighbors, as one astronomy professor put it back in 1960 when he began looking for them.
07:14My name is Frank Drake, and I conducted the first modern, scientifically-based search for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent life.
07:22Frank Drake is seen as a legend among astronomers today.
07:26In 1960, the search for extraterrestrials still belonged only to the realm of science fiction.
07:33But Drake saw the chance to expand humanity's horizons and started the initial attempt at establishing contact with potential beings on distant stars.
07:46Our search concentrated on the two nearest stars.
07:50We searched with a one-channel radio receiver for two months.
07:54At the radio frequency of the hydrogen atom, and we found no signals from those two stars.
08:02Despite the lack of success, Drake breathed life into a new science and found imitators worldwide.
08:10In 1977 in Ohio, a signal was discovered.
08:15Calculations resulted in a puzzling combination of numbers.
08:20Astronomer Jerry Ehman noted the word WOW on the computer printout, signaling his own excitement.
08:27But after 27 seconds, the signal suddenly disappeared.
08:31Astronomers tried feverishly to find it again, but to no avail.
08:36Even today, it remains unexplained where the WOW signal actually came from.
08:40No one realizes the power of these parabolic dishes.
08:46I can whisper, and even 20 meters away, it is as if I am speaking directly into your ear.
08:58A microphone 20 meters away would not know the difference if I whispered into this dish or directly into this microphone.
09:08This is how we do the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
09:15The search for extraterrestrial intelligence and radio astronomy in the following equations.
09:20Ft equals x dot with plus dot f and the factor of...
09:24The circle of SETI researchers is small, exclusive, and with exceptions, very publicity shy.
09:31A tight-lipped group of international specialists.
09:34With their extraordinary biographies and resumes,
09:37they don't fit into any of the usual molds in the science shop.
09:40I'm Dr. Kent Cullors. I'm a physicist, working for many years in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
09:48Now I'm a consultant for NASA and the International Astronomical Union.
09:57Kent Cullors is one of the most famous astronomers in the world.
10:02Kent Cullors is one of the most in-demand SETI specialists in the world.
10:06He served as the model for the role of the blind researcher, Dr. Clark, in the film Contact.
10:11Kent Cullors has been sightless since birth.
10:14He compensated for his handicap with talent and hard work.
10:18His area of specialization is algorithms.
10:21Mathematical formulae that are said to filter out order from the chaos of the universe.
10:27I developed the methods for looking for television-like signals, the pure carrier notes,
10:34and radar-like signals, the pulses or clicks.
10:39And I simplified them in the computer so that, in fact,
10:43we could do the work a hundred times faster than we ever could before.
10:50That doesn't mean that we can't do it.
10:54That doesn't mean they're easy to detect.
10:56They might be weak or they might be complex.
11:06The search grows so quickly that in 50 years,
11:09we will have gone from searching a few hundred stars to searching the galaxy.
11:24As a blind physicist, surprisingly enough,
11:27I spend a great deal of time doing the equivalent of visualizing.
11:31Because if you don't have a picture of the situation,
11:35you have no idea whether the answers that come from your equations make sense.
11:42What one does in physics is to try to extend the senses,
11:47to look at the very large and the very small.
11:50I'm looking for something which is understandable but is very difficult to understand.
11:57I'm looking for something that is very difficult to understand.
12:01I'm looking for something that is very difficult to understand.
12:06I'm looking for something which is understandable but is very distant.
12:12So, yes, it's another form of my reaching out.
12:23In his day-to-day life, Ken Cullors relies on assistance.
12:27On his Braille computer, with which he can type mathematical formulas,
12:31and on his wristwatch with a lifting crystal.
12:34Perhaps his expertise is so in demand
12:37because he develops new ways of deciphering an invisible world every day.
12:44Much like their colleagues in California,
12:46scientists in Johannesburg are currently planning a new giant telescope
12:51that is said to be able to see to the limits of the universe, the SKA.
12:55Ken Cullors is taking part in one of the first briefings.
13:05So the telescope is optimised really for the discovery of the unknown.
13:09That's where we suspect our favoured fortune will lie,
13:13not in the things that we know that are out there,
13:16but for the things that we'll discover that people don't know about.
13:19The SKA will be able to do surveys faster than almost anything else.
13:24It'll work in the range of frequencies that SETI has been predicted,
13:29SETI signals have been predicted.
13:31They're going to be very weak,
13:33and you really need to optimise the site in order to be able to measure them.
13:38Maybe one can develop an algorithm
13:41that simply looks at the radio astronomy data in a sensible way
13:46and can look for particular kinds of unusual signals that are not natural.
13:56In researching the universe,
13:58the SKA overshadows everything that came before it.
14:024,500 radio antennae create a gigantic spiral stretching across several countries.
14:0817 governments had to come to an agreement
14:11in order to cover construction costs totalling 1.5 billion euros.
14:16Several nations applied to serve as locations for this telescope,
14:20and after a difficult decision-making process,
14:23only South Africa and Australia remain in the running.
14:27Both countries have desert-like expanses
14:30that have sufficient area for these gigantic installations.
14:39The square kilometre array is vast by comparison to any other radio antenna,
14:46and it's in complete synthesis with all of astronomy.
14:50Virtually all astronomers believe that there are trillions of planets
14:55that are similar to the Earth,
14:57and among those there must be intelligence.
15:02For millennia, humans have looked to the stars with fascination,
15:07and scholars have posed questions about other life forms out there.
15:11Some were sentenced to death for their revolutionary thinking.
15:16The celestial canopy, a bell hanging over flat plain,
15:20this is how the French astronomer Camille Flammarion depicted it in the 19th century.
15:30As early as in antiquity, the Greek philosopher Democritus
15:35surmised that the points of light in the sky were distant worlds.
15:39He believed that some could be populated with life forms.
15:44For his contemporaries, this concept seemed frightening.
15:49They thought that the stars rotated around the Earth.
15:52Very few early astronomers came upon the idea that the stars might be other suns.
15:58In the Middle Ages, this idea became more than unpopular.
16:02Only visionaries and lateral thinkers allowed themselves to question
16:06the prevailing image of the world.
16:08The Italian Giordano Bruno viewed the Earth as one planet among many
16:13upon which intelligent beings lived.
16:16He believed in the infinity of the universe with no limits,
16:19filled with countless suns and stars.
16:26Soon, the guardians of the faith within the Catholic Church
16:29called these ideas into question.
16:33In the Vatican, new ideas about the structure of our world
16:37were looked upon unfavourably.
16:39Whoever deviated from the official position of the Church
16:42risked cruel punishment.
16:44The Inquisition demanded of Giordano Bruno that he renounce his ideas,
16:49but he refused.
16:52At the Campo di Fiore, a church was built.
16:55It was the first church in Italy.
16:59At the Campo di Fiore in Rome, Bruno was publicly burned at the stake in 1600.
17:06To this day, he is considered throughout the world to be a martyr for science.
17:11It was only after 400 years that the Papal Council on Culture
17:15declared his execution to be unjust.
17:18There still has not been a full restitution.
17:21Giordano Bruno wrote that there may be many other universes,
17:25and we know that he was burned at the stake.
17:27And so people leaped to the conclusion that the one was the reason for the other.
17:31In fact, the idea of multiple universes was supported by the Church
17:35throughout its history.
17:36Thomas Aquinas talks about it.
17:38The Bishop of Paris in 1277 said to deny the possibility
17:43that God could create other universes
17:45would be to deny God's omnipotent power.
17:48The reason Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake
17:50had nothing to do with his science.
17:52It was that he was a strange and crazy man
17:56who had a lot of very odd ideas about theology.
18:01Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence.
18:04Since Bruno's time, much has changed in the Vatican.
18:08Today, the Holy See employs a dozen astronomers
18:11to research space in the name of the Church.
18:16Brother Guy Consolmagno studied planetary science at the MIT in Boston.
18:21Today, he explores space for the Vatican,
18:24and he publishes writings on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
18:29It comes to the great question, you know,
18:31would you baptize an extraterrestrial?
18:34Only if they asked.
18:37Guy, a Jesuit, occupies himself with the border regions between faith and science,
18:43even with the scandalous question of who should baptize whom
18:47should we come into contact with extraterrestrials.
18:51You know, it turns out that these creatures live on methane
18:55and pouring water over them kills them.
18:57I don't think we're going to have that style of baptism.
19:00On the other hand, we look at the one tradition we've got in our Church,
19:04the idea of angels and devils.
19:07It is obviously a completely different way that they reach salvation.
19:12No one says you have to go around baptizing angels.
19:16My guess is that these people are in their own relationship with God,
19:23should they even exist,
19:25and that it will be clear to them,
19:28and it will be clear to us, I hope,
19:30by the time we're wise enough to know how to communicate with them,
19:33that the question is moot.
19:36For his astronomical studies,
19:38Brother Consolmagno also digs through the Holy Scriptures.
19:42Are there indications in the Bible of the existence of extraterrestrial beings?
19:47Or is man the crowning achievement of God's creation?
19:51In the Old Testament, Brother Consolmagno finally comes across something.
19:56Where were you when I was making the foundations of the Earth?
20:00When the morning stars were making joy in chorus,
20:05and I was fixing the foundation of the Earth,
20:10and in the background was my life,
20:13and I was making joyous sounds,
20:15but I did not really get what he was saying.
20:20But the first thing I was going to do is to set up the foundations of the Earth.
20:24and chorus, and applauding we're the sons of God.
20:30It's a sense of the joy of the creation of the universe.
20:33But built into this image is the idea that even before the world was formed, before Job
20:39was around to be so created and so corrected by God, there were these morning stars that
20:46also gave glory to God, these sons of God, these other creatures.
20:51It's just built into the assumption in the book of Job in the Old Testament that we're
20:55not alone.
20:56We're not the only ones who worship God.
21:03The Papal Summer Residence has, along with two observatories, a laboratory for the analysis
21:08of pieces of meteorites from space.
21:11Here Consolmagno examines meteorites very closely, looking for traces of extraterrestrial
21:17life.
21:18Astronomy is the only worldly science in which the Vatican gets involved.
21:28When you understand how the universe works, you get a little bit of the personality of
21:33the creator.
21:34You begin to see the way that he likes to do things.
21:39There are all sorts of ways the planets could have been made.
21:42By finding out the one way that actually was the way the planets were made, we begin to
21:47see the kinds of decisions that the creator makes.
21:52For some, it is God's work.
21:54For others, an astronomical phenomenon.
21:58Pieces of rock that fall from time to time out of space down to earth.
22:02And so Guy Consolmagno is also the curator of one of the largest meteorite collections
22:08in the world.
22:09The collection includes more than 1,000 pieces housed on the ground floor of the Palazzo
22:14of Castel Gandolfo.
22:18The men who burned on the pyres of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages would be astounded today
22:23by the new openness of the church with regard to extraterrestrials.
22:28But science had an icy relationship with ET until the 1960s, when a sudden thaw took place.
22:35When we speak of life beyond earth, what we generally mean is, of course, intelligent
22:40life, something resembling our noble selves.
22:44It is now OK to talk about life elsewhere or intelligent life elsewhere, whereas a decade
22:50or two ago, it wasn't OK.
22:53Statements such as these had never been made before on American television.
23:00In the 60s, the USA broke out in SETI fever.
23:04The search for extraterrestrial intelligence even occupied politicians.
23:09The government apportioned research funds generously.
23:13In 1963, the Arecibo telescope was opened in Puerto Rico.
23:18It had a 300-meter diameter and lay embedded in a valley basin.
23:22With such a super instrument, the search for signals from alien civilizations finally seemed
23:27to make sense.
23:32The SETI community expected news from the universe any day.
23:37Beyond the noise of space and astrophysical objects, the sensitive detectors of Arecibo
23:42picked up nothing.
23:44After several years of silence, the disappointment spread far and wide.
23:49Donors began to doubt whether it made sense to continue.
23:54The universe initially had just one message.
23:58There's no one out there.
24:00Humanity is alone.
24:06Now keep in mind, our galaxy has a few hundred billion star systems, so, you know, if you
24:12reduced each one of those stars to the size of a grain of sand, that would be a dump truck
24:17full of sand.
24:18And the amount of sand we've actually looked at carefully would easily fit into the small
24:22palm of your hand.
24:23So we've just begun to actually search our own galaxy for other societies.
24:27It doesn't surprise me we haven't found them yet.
24:30And indeed, at this rate, it would take forever, it would take thousands of years to go through
24:34enough sand, if you will, to maybe find something.
24:37But fortunately, the search is speeding up, so it's not going to take so long.
24:44Welcome to Are We Alone?
24:52I'm Seth Shostak and today we're going to be talking about the new Allen Telescope Array
24:57and how this new instrument is going to greatly speed up the search for ET signals.
25:01Personally, I'm not interested in finding ET 500 years from now.
25:05I'm hoping we're going to find it in the next couple of decades while I might still be walking
25:08the planet.
25:09So we're going to go to a break now.
25:11We'll be right back with Are We Alone?
25:15South of San Francisco lies one of the richest areas in the United States, the Silicon Valley,
25:21home of numerous computer companies.
25:24Seth Shostak and some of his SETI research colleagues settled here because many people
25:29with a penchant for unusual ideas live in this area.
25:33And some have the necessary means at their disposal to donate a few million here and
25:37there to projects like SETI.
25:39It's hard to believe that 30 and 40 years ago this was all agricultural land.
25:42They grew fruit here.
25:45Fruit trees are gone now, the orchards are gone.
25:56Seth works as an astronomer for the SETI Institute in Mountain View, an independent
26:01research installation whose goal is to explore the origin and prevalence of life in the universe.
26:08Publicity work, with the help of SETI's own radio program, are also part of his responsibilities.
26:14The SETI Institute employs about 100 scientists researching the development of life in space.
26:20Their most important objective is the establishment of the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California.
26:27Financing for this project has posed the greatest challenge for Seth and his colleagues.
26:34For about 15 years, SETI was a NASA program, at least most SETI in this country was being
26:40sponsored by NASA.
26:41It wasn't very expensive.
26:43It was one one thousandth of the total NASA budget, even when it was at its height.
26:49Now that was all stopped in 1993.
26:53This enchantment continued in the 1990s.
26:56What successes could SETI demonstrate?
26:58Wasn't all of this a waste of taxpayers' money?
27:02Who even found this research useful?
27:05The US Congress suddenly started posing similar questions and cut all funding to NASA for
27:10its SETI activities.
27:13It's not hard to make fun of the search for aliens.
27:16In 30 years, not one Martian has been discovered, senators concluded.
27:22From the 1970s on, William Proxmire fought against research projects he found to be senseless.
27:28He awarded SETI his Golden Fleece Award, a prize for the biggest waste of money in the
27:33nation.
27:35Researchers counted with their own image campaigns, but in 1993, the SETI department at NASA was
27:40closed and the champions of thrift in Congress triumphed.
27:46Astronomer Jill Tarter was the project director at that time.
27:50From one day to the next, she was suddenly out of a job, and her life's work went along
27:55with it.
27:56Losing the NASA funding, that is having Congress terminate the funding for NASA, was incredibly
28:02difficult.
28:03It was a huge roller coaster ride.
28:06Many of my colleagues and I were pretty devastated.
28:09Quitting was not an option for her.
28:11Today, Jill Tarter is directing a new SETI project, the construction of the Allen Telescope
28:17Array.
28:18This is actually the working part of the radio telescope.
28:22I always think it looks like something from the Saturday morning Flash Gordon cartoons,
28:29the Death Race.
28:32Jill Tarter is the grand dame of SETI research.
28:36In 2004, Time magazine chose her as one of the 100 most important people in the world.
28:42In the movie Contact, she was played by Jodie Foster.
28:46But in 1993, Tarter had no more hope of being paid as a SETI researcher.
28:59She understood the need to pull up her sleeves and become independent.
29:06We sat around a conference table and we started reading books on how to raise money.
29:12And there was only one chapter of each of the books that we read.
29:15And that was how to make the big ask.
29:19We needed a lot of money and we needed it very quickly, so we had to focus on donors
29:25with large potential for giving.
29:29Millions were raised to build the array on the lava rock of the Sierra Nevadas.
29:33Microsoft's co-founder, Paul Allen, financed a big part of the Allen Telescope Array's
29:38dishes.
29:39The billionaire picked up the $25 million tab for the installation that bears his name.
29:44It should be completed within the next few years.
29:49You can see a name up on that telescope.
29:51Elliot Gilliam is on this side.
29:52On the other side, if you could see it, is the name Dane Glasgow.
29:56These are two young Microsoft engineers who think that our technology is terrific.
30:02And they pooled their funds and got a matching grant from Microsoft for their philanthropic
30:07contribution.
30:09And so they now own this telescope.
30:11And they enjoy watching it on the webcam and have been helping us out with some new
30:17software.
30:18Okay, so everybody can buy one of those telescopes?
30:21You can buy a telescope and have your name put on it.
30:24And the price tag is $100,000, which is a big number in some sense, but a very small
30:30number for a radio telescope.
30:41A radio telescope is only useful if it's far from radios, which means it has to be
30:47far from people.
30:52So I'm standing in the Karoo semi-desert, which is a part of South Africa where you
30:59can hear the sounds of little grasshoppers and things like that.
31:07But there are no people, and there are no radios anywhere nearby, so that when we look
31:13for a radio signal from space, we don't accidentally find radio signals from Earth.
31:20Ken Cullors' mission is to find an appropriate location for a competing telescope that will
31:25be financed primarily by the European Union.
31:29Okay, so I can tell by the quality of the land, it could be quiet.
31:39There aren't cell phones, right?
31:40You already said that.
31:41No.
31:42We must drive about 16 kilometers to get a signal.
31:43Yes.
31:44And we have only a telephone that isn't very good.
31:45And we have the radios to talk if there's a problem in the area.
32:02And that's what's called citizen's band or amateur radio, or...
32:07Amateur radio, yeah.
32:10Willie Lowe operates a farm in this desolate area.
32:14He doesn't realize that he just gave Ken bad news.
32:18The farmer's ham radios are sources of disturbance for the planned radio telescope.
32:22As you can see in the distance, it's the Reebok Mountains.
32:30Ah, yes.
32:31You can look from distances without seeing any people or anything.
32:38Yes, and the mountains protect us from radio signals because we're looking far into space
32:47and we don't want to get radio signals from here.
32:54The greatest advantage of this location is the dryness.
32:58Rain does not fall here for months at a time.
33:04We need places that have only millimeters of rain per year.
33:11It can be several millimeters, but it's got to be in that range.
33:15And I've never been before any place that the rain level is so perfect for radio astronomy.
33:28The question of where to place a radio telescope is one of the most difficult decisions for
33:33astronomers.
33:34But another question rags their brains even more.
33:39Which of the billions of stars in the sky should SETI be listening in on?
33:46Since the radio telescopes can only consecutively listen for one star, the question of where
33:52will decide the success of SETI research?
34:06For astronomer Lawrence Doyle, this question has brought many sleepless nights.
34:11He uses the nighttime hours for research and goes to work when others are calling it a
34:16day.
34:17To track the locations where our neighbors in space live, he has dedicated himself to
34:21the hunt for planets outside our solar system, the extrasolar planets.
34:27They are so far away they cannot be seen even by the largest observatories.
34:39For years, science knew nothing about extrasolar planets.
34:44Astronomers could only guess that they must exist, but no one had actually seen one.
34:49In 1995, Michel Mayor and his co-worker, Didier Queloz, discovered the first extrasolar
34:56planet.
34:57It proved to be gigantic.
35:01But Lawrence Doyle is looking for something else.
35:04He is interested in small planets, those that would look like our Earth.
35:09And those are hard to find.
35:14The reason extrasolar planet detection is important to SETI is because we want to give
35:18SETI the correct targets to listen for possible radio signals.
35:23Basically, as far as we know, life originates and lives on planets.
35:28So if we can find planets the right size and distance from their star, we can give exact
35:33targets for listening for extraterrestrial radio signals.
35:38Planets are so hard to discover because in comparison to stars, they are small and dark.
35:45One star shines with the strength of billions of hydrogen bombs going off every second,
35:50while planets only reflect the light of stars.
35:54To find these dark heavenly bodies, astronomers must use a trick.
35:58What I'm doing right now is I'm measuring the brightness of the stars in this image.
36:06Basically, we can take pictures of about 50,000 stars at once, and we measure the brightness
36:13variation in image after image, and we make a plot of that brightness variation with time.
36:23The brightness has changed here, and we suspect that this is due to a planet moving across
36:31this star.
36:41The planet has moved across this star and cast its shadow on the Earth.
36:47The transit method is one of astronomers' favorite tricks for discovering extrasolar
36:51planets.
36:52For the telescope, the planet remains invisible, but a change in the star's brightness occurs
36:58as the planet crosses in front of it, and that gives the planet away.
37:03Using the data, researchers can even calculate the size of the planet and the chemical composition
37:08of its atmosphere.
37:11Up to this point, about 200 planets, mostly large ones, have been found, but Lawrence
37:16and his colleagues are looking for the small ones, those that resemble our Earth, preferably
37:21surrounded by an oxygen-rich atmosphere, for there they could suspect the existence of
37:26life.
37:27In 2007, a team of European researchers discovered the first planet resembling Earth, Gliese
37:35581c.
37:38This created a sensation for astronomy and hope for SETI.
37:42Now people in the field could work from the assumption that planets like Earth are not
37:47a rarity.
37:49The newly discovered planet is far enough from its star that moderate temperatures could
37:54in fact exist.
37:56Whether life exists there, however, is still unknown.
38:03I'm Dr. Paul Shuck, the Executive Director Emeritus of the grassroots non-profit SETI
38:27League, the world's largest organization of SETI enthusiasts.
38:36If, as some have hypothesized, we inhabit a universe that's teeming with life, then
38:47at least some of those civilizations out there will have developed radio communications.
38:52We on Earth are in our radio communicative phase, and we have the technology, perhaps
38:56for the first time in human history, to detect artificial radio emissions from other stars.
39:02My satellite antenna is pointed at the sky, but I'm not watching television, let me tell
39:13you why.
39:14I'm searching for existence proof of any alien race.
39:19By sifting through the microwaves that fall from outer space, I'm a part of the search
39:24that's known as SETI.
39:26I'm a believer with a good receiver.
39:31There are coherent signals beaming at me, and when I find one, then I'll say, wow.
39:41For a brief time in human history, we had a modestly funded NASA SETI program, and although
39:47the NASA SETI search was planned to run for ten years, just one year after they started
39:54it, Congress pulled the plug on NASA SETI, terminated the project entirely, proving of
40:00course that there is no intelligent life in Washington.
40:03Paul Schack fosters a pronounced mistrust of governmental organizations.
40:09His course of action is DIY.
40:12In the 1960s, he invented the first commercial satellite receiver.
40:17He used his patent income to fulfill his dream, his own SETI station behind his house.
40:24He lovingly christened his equipment, which he built himself, the Very Small Array.
40:30Due to conflicts with his neighbors, Paul had to plant a row of trees to block the view
40:36of the array.
40:40Three months out of the year, this array is deep in snow and not even usable.
40:44Fortunately, the snow has now melted, so I'm doing my spring cleanup.
40:50And we have hornets that like to build nests in our antennas, and the best time to remove
40:55them, of course, is during their dormant season so that we don't get stung.
40:58Oh, that one's beautiful.
41:02Paul Schack wants to prove to his colleagues in the Silicon Valley that SETI can get by
41:07even without donations from the computer industry, with simple but ingenious tricks.
41:12Ultimately, our signals find their way into a standard coffee tin.
41:17We found fortuitously that a three-pound coffee tin is exactly the right size to capture the
41:23lengths of the microwaves that we're looking for.
41:26And of course, we have our choice of any coffee brand.
41:28I selected for my antenna feeds, Chock Full of Nuts, because there are those who believe
41:33that this brand eloquently describes the whole SETI enterprise.
41:41There is an alarm.
41:42A colleague from Germany has discovered a noteworthy signal and asks Paul for help.
41:47Give me a frequency, Peter.
41:53Peter Wright in Heidelberg would like to check whether Paul is receiving the signal on his
41:57equipment too.
41:58Oh, wait a minute.
41:59I'm getting something.
42:00Red ascension?
42:01Check.
42:02It's right there.
42:05Yeah.
42:06And it's pretty strong too.
42:09The members of Paul's SETI league use their worldwide network to protect themselves against
42:14false alarms.
42:16One telescope alone can quickly catch a terrestrial interference signal.
42:20But when that signal can be heard on the other side of the planet, the chances that it is
42:24really from space increase.
42:27It's peaked.
42:28It's at S3 now.
42:29Yeah, it's pretty strong.
42:31Yeah, I think so.
42:32Probably too strong.
42:36Clearly satellite interference.
42:37It's not terrestrial and it's not ETI.
42:40Very good.
42:41Take care.
42:42Back to work.
42:43Well, that was exciting for about 30 milliseconds.
42:48It looked awfully like ETI at first, but it was just another low Earth orbit satellite.
42:53We get so much satellite interference.
42:55About once every couple of months we get one that looks really promising.
43:00But the way we tell that it's not the real thing is by what we just did here, Peter and
43:04I, independent verification from a distant location.
43:07That's the strength of the SETI league.
43:09With multiple people, different parts of the world working together, we can verify each
43:13other's hits or disprove them if it happens to be something that's not for real.
43:30The search for extraterrestrials as popular sport with homemade equipment?
43:39Radio technology professor Peter Wright demonstrates in his garden outside Heidelberg that SETI
43:45is also possible for small budgets.
43:48The Scottish native's goal is to get as many amateur researchers as possible excited about
43:53the idea.
43:58Devices like this look very, very expensive at first glance.
44:02In fact, the prices are extremely reasonable.
44:05At some flea markets, you can find real bargains spending 25 euros.
44:10You might get a device that back then cost thousands.
44:40You set the dish up in the back garden using three bricks so that the thing points upwards.
44:55It looks like an oversized bird bath.
44:58And you put a little feeder in the middle, which is relatively easy to make yourself.
45:03There are already commercial receivers that you can use and software, too.
45:07They go for around 2,000 or 3,000 euros, so effectively anyone can participate.
45:13And that's the whole idea of Project Argus, making these really simple things that everyone
45:19can use to join in.
45:20The annual meeting of the SETI League takes place in Heidelberg.
45:27Peter Wright describes the advances of his listening equipment.
45:31Others, too, have brought along their self-made antennae and are presenting small discoveries
45:36and big ideas.
46:06The highlight of the event, as it is every year, is a concert by Dr. SETI, as Paul Schuck
46:28calls his alter ego.
46:30The songs he writes about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence are motivational music for his
46:35SETI League.
46:37Membership numbers have stagnated in recent years, as E.T. has still not called.
46:43Beyond false alarms, the self-made antennae haven't picked up anything.
46:48Thus, Dr. SETI has to sing his heart out to keep his followers together, much like a shepherd
46:54keeping his flock.
47:14After nearly a half century of SETI science, we look back upon 50 years of solitude and
47:22sometimes we begin to ask, are we pursuing a futile quest?
47:29Ken Cullors, too, along with his SETI colleagues, sometimes ask themselves if they're headed
47:34down the right path.
47:36Will they live to see the day when contact is established?
47:39The belief right now is very strong among scientists that we are not a cosmic miracle.
47:46You can actually do a calculation to convince yourself of that.
47:50That calculation convinces me.
47:52I won't try to convince everyone else with it, but I wouldn't spend 25 years of my life
47:58looking for signals that I didn't think were there.
48:01Visitors will often kind of sidle up to me and be chummy and say, well, what have you
48:05seen that's interesting lately?
48:08You know, is there something that you haven't told the public about yet that's kind of in
48:15the works?
48:16And I just have to say, no, not yet.
48:19You know, I think everybody who has been involved with SETI deep down inside, I think
48:25their number one wish is that the experiment will succeed while they're still around to
48:29see that happen.
48:30You know, it would be a shame to retire, to die and not see any success.
48:37I think that would be unfortunate, but it might happen.
48:42We know the end result, the discovery is going to be so important to our whole civilization,
48:48not just to science, but to our culture, to our technology, to our philosophy, to our
48:54plans for the future.
48:56All of these things will be impacted in a great way by the discovery.
49:01And you know, you only live once, and you want to spend your life doing something which
49:06you think is very important, and detecting another civilization is, to me and the other
49:11people who work in this field, the most important thing we could be doing.
49:19Some people suggest that if you saw an intelligent alien at a distance in a twilight, you might
49:29mistake them for human.
49:32I don't know.
49:33Nature's really very inventive, and my definition of intelligence is the ability to build and
49:40operate some kind of transmitter that can be detected over interstellar distances.
49:45If it's little green men, big blue women, anything in between, it's fine with me.
49:53Meanwhile, workers at the Allen Telescope Array are continually constructing new antennae.
50:00The worldwide establishment of interstellar listening posts makes tracking extraterrestrial
50:05signals more probable with each passing day.
50:09But what would the consequences of such a discovery be for our lives?
50:15And how dangerous would contact with aliens be?
50:21I can conceive of no nightmare as terrifying as establishing such communication with the
50:30so-called superior or, if you wish, advanced technology in outer space.
50:39Extraterrestrials, do they really exist?
50:45Or are aliens a recent invention by Hollywood designers?
50:54Scientists examine visions of the future very carefully.
50:59What is really behind the UFO sightings in Nevada?
51:03We saw a great big disk.
51:05It covered three, four city blocks.
51:09The search for aliens is a grey area between science and science fiction.
51:14Astronomers are already developing scenarios for the day when we make contact.
51:19How will we communicate with them?
51:23Here we go, here we go, breathing again, going down.
51:26Can the language of intelligent sea creatures help us understand interstellar communication complexity?
51:33All this in the next episode, Contact in Space.
51:56Transcription by ESO. Translation by —