SETI Live

A newly identified class of distant galaxies—nicknamed "little red dots"—may be doing something extraordinary: quietly creating the raw ingredients for life. Join host Dr. Simon Steel as we explore groundbreaking new research from Dr. Remo Ruffini and Dr. Yu Wang from the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet), suggesting that these compact, enigmatic galaxies could a...

Where should we actually be looking for life beyond Earth? Astronomers have identified 45 Earth-like worlds that could be among the most promising places to search for biosignatures—chemical signs of life in distant atmospheres. Inspired by the idea of a real-life "Project Hail Mary," this research helps narrow the search for habitable planets and guides future telescopes toward the most compellin...

Join us for a special episode of SETI Live as host Lauren Sgro sits down with astronomer and entrepreneur Franck Marchis to explore the newly launched SkyMapper platform—now open to the public. SkyMapper is a global, decentralized network of telescopes and all-sky sensors that connects professional observatories, citizen scientists, and classrooms around the world. In this live, interactive sessio...

Astronomers may have just witnessed the aftermath of a massive planetary collision in another star system—offering a rare glimpse into how worlds are destroyed… and possibly reborn. Join host Dr. Moiya McTier and guest Anastasios Tzanidakis (University of Washington) as they break down new evidence suggesting that two large planetary bodies recently crashed into each other. What does this tell us...

As NASA prepares to return humans to the Moon with Artemis II, what does it really take to live and work on the lunar surface? Join host Simon Steel and planetary scientist Pascal Lee as they explore the science and strategy behind humanity's next giant leap. From cutting-edge spacesuit design and testing to the challenge of choosing where astronauts will land, this conversation dives into what co...

How do scientists actually search for extraterrestrial intelligence? Astronomer, professor, and Drake Award winner Jason Wright joins host Beth Johnson on SETI Live to discuss his new textbook, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Theory and Practice. The book brings together the science, methods, and history of SETI into a single framework for students and researchers. SETI has evolved d...

Saturn's largest moon may have had a violent birth. New research led by SETI Institute scientist Matija Ćuk proposes that Titan formed when two earlier Saturnian moons collided and merged hundreds of millions of years ago. This dramatic event may explain several long-standing mysteries in the Saturn system—including Titan's unusual orbit, the origin of the strange tumbling moon Hyperion, and even...

Astronomers have unveiled a novel technique for detecting faint signals from stellar and exoplanetary systems — potentially opening new pathways in the search for extraterrestrial technology and natural astrophysical phenomena alike. In this episode of SETI Live, host Moiya McTier sits down with radio astronomer Cyril Tasse to explore the method described in Nature Astronomy. How does it work? Why...

Dr. Franck Marchis, Director of Citizen Science at the SETI Institute and co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of SkyMapper, and Dr. Lauren Sgro, Outreach Manager at the SETI Institute, update us about citizen science with the Unistellar network in partnership with the SETI Institute. They discuss making 15,000 observations in 2025, pending confirmation of a planet candidate, Comet 29P outbursti...

Astronomers may have found the missing link in the story of the Milky Way's most common planets. In this SETI Live, host Moiya McTier is joined by exoplanet scientist John H. Livingston to explore a new discovery that helps connect the dots between small rocky worlds like Earth and the larger "sub-Neptunes" that dominate our galaxy. Using cutting-edge observations and statistical analysis, researc...

Our Cosmic Consciousness residency artists daniela brill estrada, Bart Kuipers, and Julie-Michèle Morin, discuss an art-science collaboration that imagines how language might emerge from alien worlds. Hosts: Bettina Forget and Cosmic Consciousness residency advisor Gregory Betts. Join SETI AIR program Director Bettina Forget for a conversation with Cosmic Consciousness artists in residence daniela...

Are we finally uncovering hidden pulsars at the center of the Milky Way? Join host Beth Johnson and William J. Welch Postdoctoral Fellow Karen Perez for a deep dive into a newly announced discovery of a possible pulsar near our galaxy's core. Using data from the Breakthrough Listen Deep Pulsar Survey and observations with the NSF Green Bank Telescope, researchers are probing one of the most extrem...

Humanity is heading back to the Moon—and Artemis II is the mission that makes it real. In this SETI Live, host Simon Steel is joined by Dr. Caitlin Ahrens, assistant research scientist at NASA Goddard, to explore how Artemis II will prepare the way for future astronaut missions. Artemis II isn't landing on the Moon—but it is laying the groundwork. From mapping the lunar environment to understandin...

In this SETI Live episode, host Simon Steel (Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center) chats with evolutionary biologist Philipp Schiffer (Worm Lab) about one of the most astonishing discoveries in modern biology: scientists have revived a microscopic worm that had been frozen in Siberian permafrost for roughly 46,000 years. These nematodes entered a state of cryptobiosis — a kind of biological "p...

For more than two decades, millions of volunteers turned their home computers into a planet-scale telescope, donating idle processing power to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence through SETI@home. That effort ended in 2020—but the data never stopped speaking. Now, UC Berkeley scientists have taken a fresh, rigorous look at the vast SETI@home archive and identified around 100 intriguing s...

Using early data from the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope, astronomers have analyzed over one million galaxies to test a long-standing idea in astrophysics: that galaxy mergers help trigger the growth of supermassive black holes. In this SETI Live, host Dr. Moiya McTier will explore two new Euclid studies that combine vast sky surveys, machine learning, and multi-wavelength observat...

2026 is a pivotal year for space science. From humans returning to the Moon to new telescopes opening more expansive windows on the universe, this year marks a turning point in how we explore space—and why it matters. SETI Institute communications specialist Beth Johnson and Senior Planetary Astronomer Franck Marchis will tour the biggest missions, milestones, and moments shaping space science in...

We're going live with Dr. Cynthia Phillips, Europa Clipper Project Staff Scientist and Science Communications Lead, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to explore a surprising and exciting new chapter in comet science. Recently, the Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) aboard NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft made unique observations of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS at a time when Earth- and Mars-ba...

Get ready for a fascinating deep dive into one of the biggest questions in astrobiology: How common are biological extraterrestrial intelligences in the Milky Way? Host Simon Steel, Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research, is joined by Manuel Scherf and Helmut Lammer (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences) to explore new research that challenges long-held assumptions...

In a special bonus SETI Live, communication specialist Beth Johnson welcomes astronomer and entrepreneur Franck Marchis to introduce SkyMapper, a new global network of smart telescopes and all-sky sensors designed to open the universe to everyone. SkyMapper brings together professional observatories, citizen astronomers, and classrooms into a single, decentralized platform. It enables real scienti...

On this episode of SETI Live, host Moiya McTier welcomes two leading researchers—Gabriele Cugno (University of Zürich) & Sierra L. Grant (Carnegie Institution for Science)—to dive into an extraordinary discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): a carbon-rich, moon-forming disk around the distant exoplanetary object CT Cha b, some 625 light-years away. What exactly is a "moon-forming disk"...

Join host Beth Johnson for a fascinating episode of SETI Live, featuring planetary scientists Dr Georgina Miles and Dr Carly Howett from the University of Oxford. We'll be unpacking their groundbreaking study showing that Enceladus — one of Saturn's icy moons — may harbor a stable subsurface ocean capable of supporting life. 📄 For more info: The study "Endogenic heat at Enceladus' north pole" has...

What happens when a planet is full of water—but too hot for oceans? Meet the "steam worlds," exotic exoplanets wrapped in thick water vapor and boiling at thousands of degrees. These strange worlds may be far from habitable, but they're reshaping how scientists think about planets, water, and where life might exist. In this episode of SETI Live, host Beth Johnson talks with Artem Aguichine of the...

Join SETI Live host Moiya McTier with Néstor Espinoza (STScI) and Ana Glidden (MIT) for a deep dive into the latest JWST observations of TRAPPIST‑1 e, one of the most tantalizing Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of a nearby star. In this episode, we explore: 🛰 How JWST is peering into TRAPPIST-1 e's atmosphere (or lack thereof). 🔵 Why the planet almost certainly doesn't have a thick hydr...

Dr. Moiya McTier is an astrophysicist, folklorist, and science communicator in New York City who loves planets, galaxy evolution, her cat named Cosmo, and old stories about space. She is also the latest addition to our rotating cast of hosts for SETI Live! Join communications specialist Beth Johnson for an interview to introduce Moiya to the community. So please bring your questions and help us we...