But as Scientific American reports, there are other reasonable explanations for the lights identified in the research that are probably more likely. They could be radiation in the upper atmosphere caused by atomic weapons testing, for instance, or sightings of high-altitude balloons that were used to monitor nuclear detonations during the era. Or they might just be cosmological phenomena that are still observed today, like gamma-ray bursts, that were caught on equipment from the era.One thing’s for certain: the research is controversial — SciAm notes that arXiv.org, a pre-print repository that will generally host a very broad range of studies as they’re scrutinized by the scientific community, declined to accept the paper that was ultimately accepted by Scientific Reports.
Oct 29, 2025Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jill Tarter discuss why radio waves are the primary method for searching for extraterrestrial life, referencing Carl Sagan’s Contact, the challenges of detecting signals across cosmic distances, and Jill’s famous analogy that humanity’s search is like scooping a single glass of water from the ocean to look for fish. Their conversation highlights both the profound implications of discovering intelligent life and the hope it could provide for humanity’s long-term survival.
Interview with Jill TarterWe’ve Only Searched One Glass of the Cosmic Ocean for AliensQuoteOct 29, 2025Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jill Tarter discuss why radio waves are the primary method for searching for extraterrestrial life, referencing Carl Sagan’s Contact, the challenges of detecting signals across cosmic distances, and Jill’s famous analogy that humanity’s search is like scooping a single glass of water from the ocean to look for fish. Their conversation highlights both the profound implications of discovering intelligent life and the hope it could provide for humanity’s long-term survival.
Quote from: catdlr on 10/29/2025 07:30 pmInterview with Jill TarterWe’ve Only Searched One Glass of the Cosmic Ocean for AliensQuoteOct 29, 2025Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jill Tarter discuss why radio waves are the primary method for searching for extraterrestrial life, referencing Carl Sagan’s Contact, the challenges of detecting signals across cosmic distances, and Jill’s famous analogy that humanity’s search is like scooping a single glass of water from the ocean to look for fish. Their conversation highlights both the profound implications of discovering intelligent life and the hope it could provide for humanity’s long-term survival.This presupposes the non-existence of alien civilizations that have engaged in stellar engineering or galaxy wide colonization at a scale that would be easily visible from Earth. A billion year old civilization could be at Kardashev 3 scale, and this seems to be excluded by default in the argument that distant civilizations are hard to detect for us outside of the “glass” worth of ocean we have so far studied.A galaxy hosting a Kardashev 3 civilization would be easily detectible at a distance of more than a billion light years.
The SETI Institute announced that it will incorporate the new NVIDIA IGX Thor platform to enhance its real-time search for signals from space at the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in Northern California. The collaboration brings cutting-edge AI technology—built for demanding real-world environments—into radio astronomy for the first time at this scale.The ATA’s 42 antennas scan the sky for radio signals that may reveal cosmic events or, one day, evidence of intelligent life. Using the NVIDIA IGX Thor platform, the SETI Institute will be able to process and interpret these signals directly at the telescope, dramatically reducing the time it takes to recognize unusual or promising data.“NVIDIA IGX Thor enables us to run AI inference and GPU-accelerated signal processing workloads closer to the edge,” said Luigi Cruz, Staff Engineer at the SETI Institute. “Its compact form factor and power efficiency makes it an ideal development platform for our next-generation pipeline, which is based on NVIDIA Holoscan.”This new collaboration builds on the SETI Institute’s earlier success with NVIDIA IGX Orin, which powered the world’s first real-time AI search for fast radio bursts (FRBs)— flashes of radio energy that last milliseconds. The move to IGX Thor will expand those capabilities, allowing researchers to analyze more of the sky, more quickly, and with greater precision.“By combining scientific curiosity with advanced technology, we’re transforming how we explore the universe,” said Dr. Andrew Siemion, Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute. “The new NVIDIA platform gives us the reliability and performance to run complex AI models right at the telescope. It’s an incredible step forward for our mission.”
According to new research by Professor Alex Ellery of Carleton University (go Ravens!), these probes may have already visited the Solar System
Quote from: russianhalo117 on 04/09/2022 06:27 amQuote from: russianhalo117 on 11/24/2021 03:28 amQuote from: russianhalo117 on 10/10/2021 02:58 amSETI Nebula processing progress report dated 28 September 2021:https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85783SETI Nebula processing progress report dated 21 November 2021:https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85810The SETI Era is coming to an end at the UC Berkeley Space Science Laboratory as SETI's computer and science hardware was moved to the UC System's surplus and dispositions campus. SETI continues its legacy programme wind down in preparations to move off UCB property.Another bittersweet milestone.We're cleaning out our lab at Space Sciences, and saying goodbye to a lot of history.NOTE:The SETI and SETI@HOME data ranking and processing project's final research processing update for the Nebula final backend processing project and for Arecibo based data is below with the ongoing follow up observations phase having since moved to the ultramodern FAST Observatory after the collapse of the project's previous main observatory. Two stalled research papers with the findings await publication pending the results of the FAST follow-up observations. SETI has since moved on to its successor projects including PanoSETI.SETI Nebula processing progress report dated 03 March 2023:https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85996
Quote from: russianhalo117 on 11/24/2021 03:28 amQuote from: russianhalo117 on 10/10/2021 02:58 amSETI Nebula processing progress report dated 28 September 2021:https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85783SETI Nebula processing progress report dated 21 November 2021:https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85810The SETI Era is coming to an end at the UC Berkeley Space Science Laboratory as SETI's computer and science hardware was moved to the UC System's surplus and dispositions campus. SETI continues its legacy programme wind down in preparations to move off UCB property.Another bittersweet milestone.We're cleaning out our lab at Space Sciences, and saying goodbye to a lot of history.
Quote from: russianhalo117 on 10/10/2021 02:58 amSETI Nebula processing progress report dated 28 September 2021:https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85783SETI Nebula processing progress report dated 21 November 2021:https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85810
SETI Nebula processing progress report dated 28 September 2021:https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85783
Two papers on SETI@home will be published in The Astronomical Journal, a well-regarded scientific journal:SETI@home: Data Acquisition and Front-End Processing describes SETI@home's data recorder, splitter, and client program. It covers the five detection types, their parameters and statistics, and the algorithm for finding them.SETI@home: Data Analysis and Findings describes the back end (Nebula) and its results: RFI removal, candidate finding and ranking. It explains how artificial signals, or 'birdies', were used to optimize algorithms and estimate overall sensitivity.There will probably be another paper at some point.
Cool Worlds - The Most Tragic Solution to the Fermi Paradox:
"Because of current limitations on technology, an important assumption of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is that extraterrestrial intelligence and life will be interested in making contact and so target human receivers," said Dr. Laurance Doyle, SETI Institute scientist and co-author on the paper. "This important assumption is certainly supported by the independent evolution of curious behavior in humpback whales.""Humpback whales live in complex societies, are acoustically diverse, use bubble tools and assist other species being harassed by predators," said co-lead author Dr. Fred Sharpe, UC Davis Affiliate. "Now, akin to a candidate signal, we show they are blowing bubble rings in our direction in an apparent attempt to playfully interact, observe our response, and/or engage in some form of communication.""Humpback whales often exhibit inquisitive, friendly behavior towards boats and human swimmers," said co-lead author Jodi Frediani, marine wildlife photographer and U.C. Davis Affiliate. "We've now located a dozen whales from populations around the world, the majority of which have voluntarily approached boats and swimmers blowing bubble rings during these episodes of curious behavior."The team's findings were recently published in Marine Mammal Science in a paper titled "Humpback Whales Blow Poloidal Vortex Bubble Rings." The study analyzes 12 bubble ring-production episodes involving 39 rings made by 11 individual whales.
