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ZL2VAL > SETI 29.05.03 14:53l 136 Lines 8028 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: SETI and Astrobiology
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From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : SETI@WW
By Thomas Pierson
CEO, SETI Institute
posted: 07:00 am ET
29 May 2003
On any dark clear night, it's easy to gaze at the thousands of visible
stars and imagine that there are other worlds orbiting those distant
suns, and, perhaps, life on those other worlds. This is an ancient idea,
but today we have the scientific tools that enable humans to ask more
than speculative questions about the existence of life beyond the bounds
of Earth. Biologists, geologists, astronomers, and planetary scientists
pursue evidence of life "out there" using different methods and
strategies. Seeing an opportunity for truly interdisciplinary research,
NASA established the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) in 1998 as one
element of its research program in astrobiology. Today, NAI is composed
of 15 Lead Teams, which together represent over 700 investigators across
the United States, and it has international partnerships with
astrobiology research organizations around the world. As
astrobiologists, these scientists are working at the frontier of our
understanding of life. For example, teams study life in extreme
environments on Earth, look for the molecular precursors for life in the
interstellar ices and meteorites, participate in the exploration of
Mars, and seek evidence of extrasolar planetary systems.
Although not currently a member of the NAI, scientists with the SETI
Institute lead more than 35 projects that relate to the understanding
the nature, prevalence and distribution of life in the universe. These
projects span the domain of astrobiology from studying the origin of
life on Earth, to seeking life on Mars. We've been doing astrobiology
for a long time. Since 1984, we've been engaged in the search for the
electromagnetic signals from a distant world that would indicate the
presence of transmitters, evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence made
manifest by its communications technology.
The new Astrobiology Roadmap (November 2002) states, in goal 7, that "a
strategy is needed for recognizing novel bio-signatures. This strategy
ultimately should accommodate a diversity of habitable conditions, biota
and technologies in the universe that probably exceeds the diversity
observed on Earth …" and goes on to say: "As more complex biological
features eventually evolved, as evidenced by plants and animals, the
associated biosignatures became easier to distinguish from the abiotic
world. Human technology continues this trend, with the added benefit
that it might be detected remotely. Thus, although technology is
probably much more rare than life in the universe, its associated
biosignatures perhaps enjoy a much higher "signal-to-noise" ratio.
Accordingly, current methods should be further developed and novel
methods should be identified for detecting electromagnetic radiation or
other diagnostic artifacts that indicate remote technological
civilizations <http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/roadmap/g7.html>." At
the SETI Institute, our work encompasses the full range of astrobiology
as defined by the new NASA Astrobiology Roadmap.
In 2000, the U. S. Congress called for an assessment of the astrobiology
programs of NASA, other governmental and non-governmental programs by
the Committee on the Origin and Evolution of Life (COEL) at National
Research Council, National Academies. Published in 2003 as "Life in the
Universe: An Assessment of U. S. and International Programs in
Astrobiology" (COEL report:
<http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ssb/lifeintheuniverse.html>), this
review commends the youthful NAI programs, and recommends that the NAI
led programs be allowed to mature to better assess the impact of the
virtual 15-node institute, the interdisciplinary work, and the
international cooperation that the NAI has engendered. The report also
points toward the dominant participation of scientists from the life
sciences, and to a lesser extent, geology, in contrast to the much lower
level of participation from the astronomical research community. The
COEL report recommends further collaboration within NASA especially with
the astronomical research programs, as well as with other agencies such
as National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, National
Institutes of Health, and the US Dept. of Agriculture to develop
multilateral programs in astrobiology in the US.
In the US, SETI has been conducted beyond the domain of government
funded research for more than a decade. "Perhaps the most romantic
venture in astrobiology is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
(SETI). This effort has had a checkered reception by scientists and
federal lawmakers, with the result that the current efforts are almost
entirely privately funded." (COEL report, p. 6) This privately-funded
SETI research is conducted by scientists at several US
universities--University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz, Ohio
State University, Harvard and Princeton Universities--at the SETI
Institute, a private non-profit research organization, and by amateurs
with small backyard dishes. Millions of people also contribute the idle
time of their CPU's to process data via the SETI@home <mailto:SETI@home>
screen-saver program, the world's largest distributed computing program.
SETI interests and engages the public in the search for life in the
universe. That the SETI Institute has and continues to be a world-leader
in this work is clearly acknowledged in the COEL report. "The SETI
Institute in Mountain View, California, the nexus of such efforts in the
United States, has accomplished in a spectacular way the founding of a
science institute and the procurement of stable private funding to carry
on the search. Because world-class scientists lead the SETI Institute,
it is a carefully designed effort and worthy of notice by the scientific
community and relevant federal agencies - The leadership of the SETI
institute has forged a unique endeavor out of private and public funds,
maintained a high standard of scientific research through its
peer-reviewed research activities, and articulated clearly and
authoritatively the rationale for approaches to a comprehensive search
for extraterrestrial intelligence." (COEL report, p. 6 and 46.)
In 2002, the Institute published "SETI 2020: A Roadmap for the Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence," a study that recommends a
comprehensive research program for the future of SETI. The prime
recommendations are to build a next-generation, low-cost telescope where
SETI can be conducted 24-7 simultaneous (and without interfering) with
radio astronomy, to develop new methods for SETI seeking signals in the
optical portion of the spectrum, and to plan for the future when
higher-speed computing will support a continuous all-sky survey. Even
before SETI 2020 was published, optical SETI projects started at
Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Harvard and Princeton. Ohio State University is
working on prototypes for the all sky survey. And, today, we at the SETI
Institute look forward to the construction of the Allen Telescope Array
(ATA), the next generation radio telescope that will host radio
astronomy and SETI observations simultaneously, all day, every day,
24-7. Working closely with the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at University
of California at Berkeley and with major support for the R & D phase of
the ATA provided by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, the Institute
has developed and tested a 3-element prototype of the ATA. The next step
is to build out the array, and enormously expand "the most romantic
venture in astrobiology," the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
============================
73 de Alan
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