Look up SETI or seti in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Seti or SETI may refer to:

Astronomy[link]

• SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
• SETI Institute
• SETI@home, grid computing project
• Active SETI

Egyptology[link]

18th dynasty[link]

• Seti (commander), grandfather of Seti I

19th dynasty[link]

• Seti (Viceroy of Kush)
• Seti I (died 1279 BC), pharaoh
• Seti II (died 1197 BC), pharaoh
• Seti-Merenptah, a son of Seti II
• Seti, son of Amun-her-khepeshef
• Sethi, one of the sons of Ramesses II

Nepal[link]

• Seti River
• Seti Zone

Music[link]

• SETI (band), an ambient band, and their self-titled album
• SETI (The Kovenant album), an album by a metal band The Kovenant

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2010)

Sara Seager (born 1971) is a Canadian-American astronomer who is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and known for her work on extrasolar planets. She was born in Toronto, Canada. In 1994, she earned the degree of Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Toronto. In 1999, Seager was granted a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University. Her doctoral thesis explored atmospheres on extrasolar planets.^[1]

Sara Seager used the term "Gas Dwarf" for a high mass super earth type planet composed mainly of Hydrogen and Helium in an animation of one model of the exoplanet Gliese 581 c. The term "gas dwarf" has also been used to refer to planets smaller than gas giants, with thick hydrogen and helium atmospheres.^[2][3] NASA's PlanetQuest referred to her as "an astronomical Indiana Jones".^[4]

Academic positions[link]

• Ellen Swallow Richards Associate Professor of Planetary Science, MIT, January 2007–
• Senior Research Staff Member, Carnegie Institution of Washington, August 2002–December 2006
• Long-term Member, Institute For Advanced Study, March 2001–August 2002
• Member, Institute For Advanced Study, September 1999–March 2001

Accomplishments[link]

• Helen B. Warner Prize from the American Astronomical Society (2007)^[5] for developing "fundamental techniques for understanding, analyzing, and finding the atmospheres of extrasolar planets
• The Fifth Annual Brilliant 10 by Popular Science (2006)^[6] for her work in developing simulations has given scientists new tools for helping visualize what foreign planets may look like.
• The Harvard Bok Prize in Astronomy (2004)^[7]

Books and media[link]

• Deming, D., & Seager, S. eds. 2003, "Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets", ASP Conf. Ser. 294 (San Francisco: ASP)

Sara Seager has appeared extensively on the pseudo-scientific Discovery Channel program, Ancient Aliens. Seager's website claims these cameo appearances "aim to set the record straight"^[8]. Whilst her pieces to camera do not explicitly endorse the hypothesis of the program (that civilization has been shaped by visitations by extraterrestrials in ancient times), her contributions provide support for many fringe science concepts by implying connections between the fringe idea and legitimate scientific concepts. For example, her cameo explaining maglev trains is juxtaposed with suggestions that megalithic monuments were constructed in prehistory using magnetic anti-gravity.

References[link]

External links[link]

• MIT Home page
• Thirteen.org
• Talk of Sara Seager at the Origins 2011 congress

This United States astronomer article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Jill Tarter
Tarter at TED. Photograph by Steve Jurvetson.
Born	(1944-01-16) January 16, 1944 (age 68)
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	University of California at Berkeley Cornell University
Occupation	Astronomer

Jill Cornell Tarter (born Jan 16, 1944) is an American astronomer and the outgoing director of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute.^[1]

Education[link]

Tarter received her undergraduate education at Cornell University, where she earned a Bachelor of Engineering Physics Degree, and a Master's degree and PhD in astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley.^[2]

Astronomy career[link]

Tarter has worked on a number of major scientific projects, most relating to the search for extraterrestrial life. As a graduate student, she worked on the radio-search project SERENDIP, and created the corresponding backronym, "Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations." She was project scientist for NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) in 1992 and 1993 and subsequently director of Project Phoenix (HRMS reconfigured) under the auspices of the SETI Institute. She was co-creator with Margaret Turnbull of the HabCat in 2002, a principal component of Project Phoenix. Tarter has published dozens of technical papers and lectures extensively both on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the need for proper science education. She is credited with coining the term "brown dwarf" for the classification of stars with insufficient mass to sustain hydrogen fusion.^[3] She has spent 35 years in the quest for extraterrestrial life and announced her retirement in 2012.^[1]

Honors and awards[link]

Tarter's work in astrobiology and her success as a female scientist have garnered achievement awards from several scientific organizations.

• Awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Women in Aerospace in 1989.
• Received two public service medals from NASA.^[4]
• Was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002 and a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences in 2003.
• Received the Adler Planetarium Women in Space Science Award in 2003.
• Was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in 2001.^[5]
• Was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2004.^[6]
• Received Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization in 2005.^[7]
• Recipient of a 2009 TED Prize.^[8][9]
• Elected a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.^[10]

In popular culture[link]

Tarter's astronomical work is illustrated in Carl Sagan's novel Contact. In the film version of Contact, the protagonist Ellie Arroway is played by Jodie Foster. Tarter conversed with the actress for months before and during filming, and Arroway was "largely based" on Tarter's work.^[2] She has also been featured in John Boswell's Symphony of Science music video, "The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)".^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lecture about long-term SETI strategies presented to the Long Now Foundation (Ogg Vorbis format).
• Finding intelligent life with telescopes and computers, podcast 2008.
• Talk entitled "Why the search for alien intelligence matters", presented at the TED2009 conference
• Interview posted at the TED Blog
• A brief bio
• Profile of Jill Tarter, in COSMOS magazine

Frank Drake
Frank Drake
Born	(1930-05-28) May 28, 1930 (age 82) Chicago
Nationality	American
Fields	Astronomy
Alma mater	Cornell University Harvard University
Known for	SETI Drake equation

Frank Donald Drake PhD is an American astronomer and astrophysicist. He is most notable as one of the pioneers in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, including the founding of SETI,^[1][2][3][4] mounting the first observational attempts at detecting extraterrestrial communications in 1960 in Project Ozma, developing the Drake equation, and as the creator of the Arecibo Message, a digital encoding of an astronomical and biological description of the Earth and its lifeforms for transmission into the cosmos.

Early life and education[link]

Born on May 28, 1930 in Chicago, as a youth Drake loved electronics and chemistry. He reports that he considered the possibility of life existing on other planets as an 8-year-old, but never discussed the idea with his family or teachers due to the prevalent religious ideology.

He enrolled at Cornell University on a Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship. Once there he began studying astronomy. His ideas about the possibility of extraterrestrial life were reinforced by a lecture from astrophysist Otto Struve in 1951. After college, he served briefly as an electronics officer on the USS Albany. He then went on to graduate school at Harvard in radio astronomy.

Drake's hobbies include lapidary and orchid cultivation.

Career[link]

Although explicitly linked with modern views on the likelihood and detectability of extraterrestrial civilizations, Drake started his career undertaking radio astronomical research at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia, and later the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He conducted key measurements which revealed the presence of a Jovian ionosphere and magnetosphere.

In the 1960s, Drake spearheaded the conversion of the Arecibo Observatory to a radio astronomical facility, later updated in 1974 and 1996. As a researcher, Drake was involved in the early work on pulsars. In this period, Drake was a professor at Cornell University and Director of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) – the formal name for the Arecibo facility. In 1974 he wrote the Arecibo message.^[5]

He is one of the pioneers of the modern field of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence with Giuseppe Cocconi, Philip Morrison, Iosif Shklovsky, and Carl Sagan.

Drake co-designed the Pioneer plaque with Carl Sagan in 1972, the first physical message sent into space. The plaque was designed to be understandable by extraterrestrials should they encounter it. He later supervised the creation of the Voyager Golden Record. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974.

Drake is a member of the National Academy of Sciences where he chaired the Board of Physics and Astronomy of the National Research Council (1989–92). He also served as President of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. He was a Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University (1964–84) and served as the Director of the Arecibo Observatory. He is currently involved in "The Carl Sagan Center for the Study of life in the Universe".^[6]

He is Emeritus Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics ^[7] at the University of California, Santa Cruz where he also served as Dean of Natural Sciences (1984–88). He serves on the Board of Trustees of the SETI Institute.

Honors[link]

Drake Planetarium at Norwood High School in Norwood, Ohio is named for Drake and linked to NASA.

See also[link]

• Lick Observatory

References[link]

• "Estimating the Chances of Life Out There"—brief biography for astrobiology workshop at the NASA Ames Research Center.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Frank Drake

• "Only a matter of time, says Frank Drake" A Q&A with Frank Drake about his famous equation and the meaning of SETI, from an interview in February 2010, leading up to the 50th birthday of SETI.
• "The Drake Equation"—Astronomy Cast transcript (html), Fraser Cain and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville professor, Dr. Pamela Gay, Monday 12 February 2007. (Full pdf transcript.)

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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2009)

G. Seth Shostak
Seth Shostak participating in "Death From the Skies" panel at CSICON 2011 in New Orleans
Born	1943
Residence	Mountain View, CA
Citizenship	United States of America
Nationality	American
Fields	Physics, astronomy, science communication
Alma mater	B.A. Princeton, Ph.D. California Institute of Technology
Known for	SETI research

Seth Shostak (born July 20, 1943) is an American astronomer. He grew up in Arlington, VA^[1] and earned his physics degree from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology.^[2]

He is the Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and the 2004 winner of the Klumpke-Roberts Award awarded by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy.^[3]

Before his involvement with SETI research, he used radio telescopes in the USA and the Netherlands, searching for clues to the ultimate fate of the universe by analyzing galaxy motion.

Science Educator[link]

In addition to his experience as an active participant in SETI research, Shostak is also involved as a science educator. He presented twelve 30-minute lectures on audio-tape and video titled "The Search for Intelligent Life in Space" for the Teaching Company in 1999.^[2]

Since February 2002 Shostak has hosted the SETI Institute's radio program Are We Alone?^[2] which was renamed "Big Picture Science" in July 2011.^[4] Each week, Shostak interviews guests about the latest scientific research on a variety of topics: cosmology, physics, genetics, paleontology, evolutionary biology and astrobiology. Big Picture Science is distributed on the Public Radio Satellite System and the Public Radio Exchange and is available for download at the SETI Institute's website and through podcasts.

Shostak also hosts the monthly "Skeptic Check" show focused on debunking pseudo-science, U.F.O.s and practices such as astrology and dowsing.^[5]

Recognition[link]

In January 2010 he was elected as a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry^[6]

He has been an observer for Project Phoenix (SETI) as well as an active participant in various international forums for SETI research. He is also Chair of the International Academy of Astronautics SETI Permanent Study Group.^[7]

Dr. Shostak has been nominated by the SETI Institute to be one of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty Speakers who will speak about his work and career to middle and high school students in October 2010.^[1]

Personal Life[link]

Shostak’s hobbies include film making, railroading, and computer animation. While working at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands he founded DIGIMA, a computer animation company.^[3]

Bibliography[link]

• Life in the Universe, Jeffrey O. Bennett, Bruce Jakosky and Seth Shostak, 1980, ISBN 0-385-28458-6.
• Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life, Seth Shostak, foreword by Frank Drake 1998, ISBN 0-9653774-3-1.
• Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe, Seth Shostak, Alex Barnett, 2003, ISBN 0-521-82233-5.
• Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Seth Shostak, foreword by Frank Drake 2009, ISBN 1-4262-0392-6.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Seth Shostak at the Internet Movie Database
• Seth Shostak biography at the SETI Institute
• SETI Institute Homepage
• "Are We Alone?" Radio Show
• "Boldly Going Nowhere" by Seth Shostak, The New York Times (April 13, 2009)
• RadioLIVE New Zealand interview with Seth Shostak