Seize Your Chance to Voyage The Universe

by Adrian Brown, Principle Investigator, SETI Institute
Oct. 15, 2009

We all have time for only a fleeting apprehension of Our Universe.

Living for a finite time within our human bodies, we all perceive our surrounding Universe differently. Rene Decartes famously declared he could trust nothing more than the fact that he was a thinking, observing being. The very basis of experiencing life is our ability to observe.

We face several challenges in expanding our experience - two of these are: 1.) the physical distance from new experiences, and 2.) the every day hubbub of our immediate lives which carries us away from the reality of our inner selves.

On occasion, we lose sight of the majesty of this exercise called Life that we are caught up in. Adult concerns create a whirl of dollar signs, protest signs and zodiac signs. How often do we get a chance to take a deep breath and get back to a state of childlike wonder about ‘What It All Means’

The act of observing Our Universe is probably the most satisfying of all human pastimes. Our inherent curiosity about our surroundings links us to our environment and nourishes our spirit. But how can we possibly reach a genuinely new experience every day?

For those of us who are lucky enough to have exploration-related occupations, we get to experience firsthand the wild and surprising beauty of our existential surroundings on a daily basis.

For the less lucky, the occasional glance at an Deep-Field Image from the Hubble Space Telescope, looking at a stunning alien panorama on the internet from one of the Mars Rovers, or watching a TV broadcast of a spacecraft launch - a human built, metal missile freeing itself from the surly bonds of the Earth, these images inspire a feeling of childhood wonder that lasts for a fleeting second. And then usually we are returned to the mundane with a crashing thud as everyday life reclaims our thoughts. The moment is promptly forgotten, until - if we are lucky - it reappears to us in our dreams.

The internet brings us new ways of experiencing the wonder and majesty of our sometimes spawned, but always immersive universe. The chance to virtually voyage into outer space, to other planets beyond our precious Earth, is available, if one knows where to look.

The SETI Institute regularly invites Explorers of the Universe to a weekly lecture held in Mountain View in northern California. Each talk is delivered by leading scientists and engineers in their field of expertise, and each topic is easily introduced for the uninitiated.

The talks are held in the middle of the week (Wednesday), in the middle of the day (12 noon). These talks are open to the public, and people lucky enough to reside in the San Francisco Bay Area are welcome to attend.

For those outside the SF Bay Area, the SETI Institute makes available a video of each talk (almost 60 videos are now available). Topics covered include the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence, human spaceflight, the exploration of Mars, the exploration of the Moon and primitive bodies like asteroids and comets, the exploration of the outer planets and their icy satellites, the interstellar medium and protoplanetary disks, extrasolar planets and their parent stars, the formation of Our Universe and, of course, exploration of extreme environments and climate change here on Earth. Each talk is designed to burst open the doorways to new perspectives on Our Universe.

Upcoming talks can be found here (http://seti.org/csc/lectures )

Past videos can be found here ( http://youtube.com/setiinstitute )

Join us and unleash your inner child - explore the Universe with us. And let a friend know how you're watching and observing Our Shared Universe.