When Will We Find The Extraterrestrials? - Seth Shostak
Monday, March 15, 2010, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Grand Valley State University Loosemore Auditorium, 401 West Fulton Street, Grand Rapids, MI, View Map
Presented by Seth Shostak, PhD, Senior Astronomer, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute
Description
The scientific hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence is about to enter its sixth decade, and we still haven't uncovered a confirmed peep from the cosmos. For that matter, we still don’t know if life at any level of intelligence exists beyond Earth. Could this mean that finding aliens, even if they’re out there, is a project for the ages – one that might take centuries or longer?
New technologies for use in the search for extraterrestrial biology suggest that, despite the continued dearth of hard evidence for life elsewhere or signals from other societies, there is good reason to expect that success might not be far off – that within a few decades we might find evidence of sophisticated civilizations.
About the Speaker
Dr. Shostak is the Senior Astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute and host of their weekly radio program “Are We Alone?” which explores topics in cosmology, physics, genetics, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and astrobiology. In addition, once a month he hosts a show called “Skeptical Sunday” which focuses on de-bunking pseudoscience (including U.F.O. claims).
His efforts at scientific outreach have been compared to the late Carl Sagan’s and in 2004 he received the Klumpe-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in recognition of his outstanding contributions to public understanding and appreciation of astronomy. He is the author of “Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence”.
Cost: Free
Contact: Grand Valley State University Department of Physics, http://www.gvsu.edu/physics , 616-331-2274
