Seth Shostak’s photo of the Allen Telescope Array in Hat Creek, CA.
Seth Shostak’s photo of the Allen Telescope Array in Hat Creek, CA.

Extraterrestrial Mashup

Antennas of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in Hat Creek, California, a joint project of the SETI Institute and the Radio Astronomy Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. Credit: Seth Shostak, SETI Institute.
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About This Episode

Are we alone? If we aren’t, where should we look for life? Should we be trying to establish interstellar communication? These questions and more will be answered on this episode of StarTalk Radio as we bring you an extraterrestrial mashup featuring some of your favorite hosts, co-hosts, and guests. To start, Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with former SETI director Jill Tarter to discuss just how much of the galaxy we’ve searched for ET. Neil also chats with Seth Shostak and Michael Ian Black about using entangled particles for communication, and SETI’s protocol if they discover alien life. Next, Seth Shostak takes over the hosting chair alongside Chuck Nice, Allen Saakyan, and Doug Vakoch, president of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), to debate how we should communicate with ET: How we listen for signals now, what messages METI will send out in 2018, and what humans can offer on a galactic scale. After that, astrobiologist David Grinspoon, Chuck Nice and acclaimed science-fiction author David Brin discuss how contacting ET would impact society and religion, whether we should be revealing ourselves to the universe, and why having a global conversation is critical before we send out signals that represent all of Earth. All that, plus, you’ll hear what David, Chuck, and David would want to know most about the aliens we contact.

NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: Extraterrestrial Mashup.

In This Episode

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