CSC/SETI Institute Colloquium SeriesSign up to our mailing list for regular updates by clicking here. The colloquiums are free and open to the public, and run from noon to 1 pm on Wednesdays at the SETI Institute, 515 N. Whisman Road, Mountain View, California. Archive of past lectures, videos, slides: 2009, 2008/2007 Watch past lectures video on SETI Institute Channel on Youtube
 poster
for month of November 2009
11/4/2009 The search for intelligent life in the Universe: some great challenges for SETI
Ben Zuckerman, Physics and Astronomy Department, UCLA The union of space telescopes and interstellar spaceships guarantees that if technological extraterrestrial civilizations were nearby or common, then someone would have come here long ago. Dr. Ben Zuckerman will discuss how construction of telescopes such as NASA's proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder enormously strengthens the force of arguments against the existence of nearby intelligent civilizations.
11/10/2009 [note: this week's seminar is on Tuesday due to Veterans Day on Nov 11]
Water, Molecular Oxygen and Ice in Star-Forming Molecular CloudsDavid Hollenbach, SETI Institute The
Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe and its molecules (oxygen,
water, carbon dioxide) a basic ingredient of life on Earth. Oxygen chemistry in the interstellar
molecular clouds which form stars and planets has long been a mystery. We discuss that mystery
and propose its resolution in this talk. Its resolution also suggests a way to synthesize complex
carbon molecules in interstellar clouds and in protoplanetary disks.
11/18/2009
The Rings of Saturn as seen by Cassini CIRS Linda Spilker, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
An extensive set of thermal measurements of Saturn’s main rings has been returned by the Cassini Composite Infrared spectrometer (CIRS) over the past five years at a variety of ring geometries that are not observable from Earth. The largest temperature changes on the lit face of the rings are driven by variations in phase angle, including an unexpected thermal surge at low phase angles. Temperatures at equinox were retrieved for the first time, as the sun traversed from the south to north side of the rings in mid-August. Thermal phase curves, our preliminary equinox results and thermal modeling will be presented.
11/25/2009 Deep Space Flight and Communications: SETI, KLT and Astronautics in a 2009 bookClaudio Maccone, Co-Vice Chair of the SETI Permanent Study Group, International Academy of Astronautics Dr. Maccone's new technical book about SETI, KLT and space missions to the Sun gravity focus will be presented in this talk. This 400-page book is entitled "Deep Space Flight and Communications", costs (unfortunately) over $100, and is divided into two parts:
(1) The first 200 pages describe the astrophysics of light-bending caused by the mass of the Sun. Since the minimal focal distance turns out to lie in between 550 and 1000 AU, any future space mission to exploit this effect must necessarily be a "deep space mission". These FOCAL space missions are studied in the book and a Phase A Proposal was submitted by Dr. Maccone to ESA back in 2000. He now argues that a similar Proposal should be submitted to NASA.
(2) The second part of the book is devoted to the KLT as optimal telecommunication tool (better than the FFT). The KLT for SETI was presented by the author in various talks, but, in this book, the reader will find the relativistic KLT also. This is useful to keep the radio link between the Earth and any deep-space spacecraft, such as the FOCAL spacecrafts to 550 AU. Dr. Maccone discovered mathematically that the relativistic KLT eigenfunctions are Bessel functions of the first kind, and that the KLT eigenvalues are the zeros of such Bessel functions. All this paves the way to "Star-Trek-like" relativistic space flights of the future.
12/2/2009
Titan's Ontario Lacus: Smoothness constraints from Cassini RADARLauren Wye, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University The Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, with frequent
flybys of the largest moon Titan. With its thick atmosphere rich in
nitrogen and hydrocarbons, it was once thought that Titan was covered in a
global ocean of methane. Cassini optical and microwave imaging instruments
have since revealed a world with a solid surface, strikingly similar in
physical appearance to Earth, complete with lakes of liquid methane/ethane
in the polar regions. Cassini RADAR altimetry data collected on the 49th
flyby of Titan (2008 December 21) over Ontario Lacus, the largest lake in
the south polar region, show signatures of a specular reflection so strong
that it saturated the radar receiver. From the specular echo strength,
which declines exponentially with increasing surface height variance, we are
able to constrain the rms surface height variation to be less than 3 mm over
the 100m-wide Fresnel zone. Lauren Wye will review her analysis of this data and the
implications for wind speeds and surface material properties.
12/9/2009
Finding Planets Around Nearby Stars: The Lick-Carnegie Extrasolar Planet Search Program
Steven S. Vogt, UCO/Lick Observatory, UC Santa Cruz
There are currently over 350 known extrasolar planets, the vast majority discovered through detection of periodic barycentric reflex motion of the planet's host star via high-precision Doppler radial velocity measurements. The Lick-Carnegie Extrasolar Planet Search Program is one such precision Doppler-based planet survey. It is currently monitoring over 1330 nearby F,G,K, and M stars for planets at 2-3 m/sec precision, and has contributed over 70% of the presently-known exoplanets. These extrasolar planetary systems display an unexpected diversity of orbital period, size, and eccentricity, and the emerging database is providing new insight into the origins and evolution of planetary systems. This talk will give a brief review of our program, reviewing details of the detection method, recent results, and future directions. The talk will also highlight the 2.4-meter Automated Planet Finder, nearing completion at Lick Observatory.
01/06/2010 Icy Bodies of the Outer Solar System: What Does The Spectroscopy Tell Us?Dale Cruikshank, Space Science Division, NASA Ames
01/13/2010 Impact Modeling: from LCROSS to Super-EarthsErik Asphaug, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, UC Santa Cruz
01/20/2010
The EvoGrid: Building an Origin of Life Simulator & Its Implications for Life, the Universe and Everything Bruce Damer, DigitalSpace and Biota.org Bruce Damer will present the current state of the EvoGrid, a worldwide, multi-disciplinary project to simulate the chemical origin of life on Earth or as it might have occurred elsewhere in ours or other universes. When operational in 2010 the prototype EvoGrid will employ a central grid of computers to generate "digital primordial soups" and then, inspired by SETI, an even larger set of observer computers operating as @Home screen savers will be employed to look for signs of emergent complexity within the soups. While we are not expecting bona fide alien forms of digital life to emerge from the EvoGrid any time soon, the experiment will present long term profound implications for science, religion, and perceptions of our place in the universe.
01/27/2010 ESAS and the Augustine Commission: The Way Forward on US Manned SpaceflightDaniel Rasky, Director for the NASA Ames Space Portal, NASA Ames Research Center
02/17/2010 Mongolian and other
Historic Solar Eclipses Laurance Doyle, SETI Institute
02/24/2010 Latest results from the Mars Phoenix Lander MicroscopeJohn Marshall, SETI Institute
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