Are we alone in the universe?

Jean-Luc Margot Professor /UCLA Department of Earth, Planetary, & Space Sciences / UCLA Department of Physics & Astronomy

Humanity is engaged in the search for biosignatures and technosignatures with the goal of finding evidence of life elsewhere. Both strategies have merits, and I will argue that the search for technosignatures is a compelling, cost-effective strategy that may yield unambiguous evidence of life elsewhere in our lifetime. Since 2016, UCLA SETI has been conducting a search for narrowband radio technosignatures with the largest fully steerable telescope on Earth, sampling over 55,000 stars to date. This research program is tightly integrated with the annual SETI course at UCLA and our ongoing collaboration (http://arewealone.earth) with 20,000 volunteers to identify promising signals.