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The Exoplanet Sleuth Behind NASA's Kepler Mission

By Shari Alsplund, Discovery and New Frontiers Program
Education and Public Outreach Manager

keplerSpace scientist William "Bill" Borucki is a soft-spoken, pleasant person who grew up in a small town in Wisconsin where he liked to build and launch rockets. He still does, and he convinced NASA to build and launch Kepler, the first spacecraft capable of finding Earth-size planets orbiting other stars.

Bill displays a number of similarities to another mild-mannered Midwesterner, a guy named Clark Kent. As the force behind what many call "NASA's coolest mission," Bill summoned veritable superpowers to get the innovative Kepler mission off the ground. Knowing what he and his team have accomplished, you get the feeling there might be a giant "S" hiding under that unassuming shirt and tie.

Read More ...


Thursday, June 25, 2009 12:36:00 PM
This feed has 42 articles on 42 pages << < 1 2 3 4 5 > >>

In the News

Hey, E.T.! The Line Is Open
MSNBC Cosmic Log
June 11, 2009

After years of preparation and testing, the SETI Institute has released the first results from a search for alien signals that uses the $50 million, 42-dish Allen Telescope Array. You didn't hear about it? Maybe that's because none of the thousands of signals picked up so far has rung an alarm bell.

Nevertheless, the fully functioning system represents the latest, greatest leap in the nearly 50-year-long search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI.

Read the entire article


Friday, June 12, 2009 8:07:19 AM
Researchers at SETI Hope to Make a Good First Impression, With Your Help
Chronicle of Higher Education
The Wired Campus
June 11, 2009

When the SETI Institute announced a new phase of its search for intelligent life in space, its researchers were faced with a question they’ve never had to answer: What would they say if they actually made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization?

Read the entire article.


Thursday, June 11, 2009 12:45:42 PM
How Do You Greet an Extraterrestrial?
Los Angeles Times
June 7, 2009

What's the proper conversation starter when greeting an alien?
How about, "This is Earth speaking. We would like to know you. Please reply."

Read the entire article


Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:04:32 AM
E.T., Why Don't You Just Call?
ABC News
June 3, 2009


An innovative new radio telescope has given new life to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, leading one of the leaders of the search to make a bold prediction.

Read the article.


Wednesday, June 03, 2009 10:27:51 AM
Competition Turns Science Into Child's Play
NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday
May 30, 2009

What if tongue depressors were made of candy? What if you made a skateboard that rolled on balls instead of wheels? And if there really is life on other planets, how on earth could we communicate?
More than 700 elementary school students came up with questions and ideas like these for the Kids Science Challenge — a nationwide competition funded by the National Science Foundation.
Host Scott Simon talks with Jim Metzner, the creator of the competition, and two students who participated.  Recorded at the SETI Institute.

Listen to the episode


Monday, June 01, 2009 9:50:09 AM
This feed has 40 articles on 8 pages << < 1 2 3 4 5 > >>

Research News

Closest Planetary System Hosts Two Asteroid Belts

NASA/JPL News on Dana Backman's upcoming paper on asteriod belts around Epsilon Eridani.
New images Show Seasons on Uranus

Near-infrared images from the Keck II telescope show the planet Uranus in 2005 (left), with the rings at an angle of 8 degrees, and at equinox in 2007 (right pair), with the planet’s ring system edge-on. In all images, the south pole is at the left and the equator is directly below the rings. Uranus, which has an 84-year orbit around the sun, has seasons that last twenty-one years. With the aid of new imaging technologies and telescopes, scientists had their best chance to observe the change of seasons on the distant planet and to look for seasonal effects on some of the solar system’s most mysterious weather features.

SETI Institute scientists Kathy Rages and Mark Showalter are members of a team studying new Keck II telescope images of Uranus to probe the seasonal dynamics of Uranus.  Read the article from the University of Wisconsin.
Sharper Jupiter Images from Next-Generation Adaptive Optics


Click for larger image

A two-hour observation of Jupiter using an improved technique to remove atmospheric blur has produced the sharpest whole-planet picture ever taken from the ground, according to astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, the SETI Institute (Franck Marchis), and the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

UC Berkeley Press Release

ESO Press Release
This feed has 8 articles on 3 pages << < 1 2 3 > >>

Announcements

ASP's Astronomy Behind the Headlines science education podcast interviews Peter Jenniskens about meteors. Click here to listen to the interview.

Douglas Vakoch is interviewed on Australia's 2UE 954 George & Paul show about Earth Speaks.
Listen to the interview (plug in may be required).

Seth Shostak book wins award:  Confessions of an Alien Hunter wins a bronze medal for Science in the 2009 Independent Publisher (IPPY) Awards.  You can buy a copy at our gift shop.

Douglas Vakoch is interviewed about Earth Speaks on New Hampshire Public Radio's Word of Mouth program. Listen to the interview.

Seth Shostak guests on Comedy Central's Colbert Report.
View the episode here.

Past Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures are available on the web and via podcast, featuring talks from Jill Tarter and Frank Drake  

The SETI Institute is hiring
We are looking for talented individuals to join our team

Make a Virtual Visit to the Allen Telescope Array!
The ATA-cam is up and running, giving a daily panorama of the site.


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New Book Alert!


Confessions of an Alien Hunter
by Dr. Seth Shostak

Aliens are big in America. Whether they’ve arrived via rocket, flying saucer, or plain old teleportation, they’ve been invading, infiltrating, or inspiring us for decades, and they’ve fascinated moviegoers and television watchers for more than fifty years.

Dr. Seth Shostak's new book, Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (National Geographic Books) offers an entertaining and expert account of the facts, fantasies, and future of finding intelligence elsewhere in the universe, and how real science differs from the Hollywood view of extraterrestrial life.

Available from the SETI Institute Gift Shop. TeamSETI members receive a 10% discount!



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