SETI turns 50: five decades of progress in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Abstract

The 1959 Nature article by Giuseppe Cocconi and Phil Morrison 1 provided the theoretical underpinnings for SETI, accompanied in 1960 by Project Ozma 2 , the first radio search for signals by Frank Drake at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Well over 100 search programs have been conducted since that time, primarily at radio and optical wavelengths, (see www.seti.org/searcharchives) without any successful signal detection. Some have suggested that this means humans are alone in the cosmos. But that is far too strong a conclusion to draw from far too small an observational sampling. Instead of concluding that intelligent life on Earth is unique, it is more appropriate to note that in 50 years our ability to search for electromagnetic signals has improved by at least 14 orders of magnitude and that these improvements are still occurring at an exponential rate. At the SETI Institute we are in the process of reinventing the way we search in order to fully utilize these technological enhancements. We are now building the setiQuest community and we intend to get the world involved in making our searches better. We need to find ways to harness the intelligence of all Earthlings in order to better seek out extraterrestrial intelligence. If we do it right, we just might succeed, and we might also change how we see ourselves, and make our own world a better place.

A strategic “viewfinder” for SETI research

“…After forty years of research the SETI project didn't furnish any concrete result at the present time [15]. Apart from many false alarms, so far intelligent pulsed or continuous radio signals having a Doppler pattern and a high polarization in the radio frequency range and/or nano-pulsed Laser signals in the optical range have never been detected.…”

Big History in its Cosmic Context

“…This extended perspective now brings clearly into view the closely-related multi-disciplinary 'sibling' fields of SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (e.g., Ekers et al 2002;Harrison 2009;Morrison, Billingham & Wolfe 1979;Shklovskii & Sagan 1966;Tarter 2001Tarter , 2004Tarter et al 2010), and Astrobiology, the study of how life might arise and evolve in the Universe (e.g., Chyba & Hand 2005;Domagal-Goldman et al 2016;Mix et al 2006). In this expanded conception, then, we are-here on our "pale blue dot" (Sagan 1995)-simply a single 'element' (in the language of set theory) of what may be a set of intelligent technology-using civilisations, which itself forms a sub-set of intelligent lifeforms in general (i.e., not necessarily technology-using), which itself forms a sub-set of lifeforms in general (i.e., not necessarily intelligent), which arise on places/planets where lifeforms could arise (i.e., habitable planets, in general).…”

Exoplanet Terra Incognita

“…Extrasolar life (exolifie) detection by SETI techniques is ongoing for decades (Tarter et al 2010), while exoplanet habitability and biosignatures are recent research fields (e.g., Grenfell 2017). Here we explore how unambiguous exolife detection will be improved with direct or indirect imaging techniques that are capable of resolving the surfaces of exoplanets.…”