Our Boldest Effort to Answer our Oldest Question: The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life Beyond Earth
Some 500 years ago, a growing awareness of cracks in the Ptolemaic model led to the Copernican revolution - a paradigm shift in our understanding in which we came to realize that the Earth was not the center of our cosmos, but rather just one of several bodies in orbit about the Sun. Centuries later, watershed discoveries brought us awareness of the structure of our galaxy, innumerable galaxies beyond our own, the cosmological evolution of the universe and the rich physics that tie them together. Just 10 years ago brought yet another humbling realization - planets., including planets like our own Earth, are abundant throughout our galaxy, and indeed planetary systems are the rule rather than the exception. Today we look towards a vista of yet further discovery, one that may answer our oldest and most profound question about the universe: Are we alone?
Among the myriad research i in this burgeoning quest for. an answer, the collective field of astrobiology, only one line of inquiry. the: search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), offers the promise of readily identifying communicative and intelligent extraterrestrial life. Here will describe the latest developments in SETI research and the search for technosignatures, the putative manifestations of technologically-capable life. Among the most exciting developments is the blossoming Breakthrough Listen Initiative 2 ten-year 100M USD 9lobal research program that constitutes the most comprehensive, intensive and sensitive search for extraterrestrial i intelligence in history. Together with our colleagues, including staff and students at the University of Manchester, we are marshalling the world's foremost observational astronomy resources to conduct state-of- the-art searches for a wide range of technosignatures, spanning the electromagnetic spectrum and leveraging the most powerful and cutting-edge data analysis techniques available.
Speaker
Andrew Siemion
Role: Professor
Organisation: University of California
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Schuster Building
Manchester
