The Search for Extraterrestrial Life (SETL)
How life begins remains a fundamental mystery. Life may have originated only once—on Earth; or life may have appeared independently in other parts of the solar system or throughout the universe. This unsolved puzzle stimulates our search for extraterrestrial life. Finding life elsewhere would be important to forming an understanding of our place in the universe. Finding extraterrestrial civilizations would help us understand how we might evolve in the future. So we are searching for life both within the solar system and in nearby regions of our galaxy.
In the solar system we are sending search instruments by spacecraft to other planets. In the galaxy we search with ground-based or space-based telescopes. In both regions, our initial search focuses on the presence of materials that indicate conditions suitable for the presence of life as we know it. Chiefly this means looking for the presence of water. We are finding evidence for this and other hints of early life on Mars. Beyond the solar system, the Kepler and other telescopes have discovered evidence of over 2,400 planets. Space telescopes later in the decade may turn specifically to the search for Earth-like planets. [More . . .]
The NASA Kepler spacecraft has detected over 2,326 planets in its initial scan of 156,000 stars in a small region of the Cygnus and Lyra constellations in the Milky Way galaxy. Most of these stars are between 500 and 3,000 light years from the sun. As there are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy, this initial scan suggests that the galaxy may contain at least 50 billion planets. Of these, 500 million are in the narrow zone around their star where life can exist. (Photo courtesy NASA Kepler Mission/ Carter Roberts)
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
The rate at which planets are being discovered indicates that they are very common as companions to stars. In our own galaxy, which may contain perhaps 50 billion planets, there may be civilizations that have advanced well beyond our own stage of development, perhaps within 1,000 light years of the sun, or even closer. This realization has led to a surge in interest in detecting the presence of such civilizations under an effort that comes under the general name of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). The search takes a number of different forms, the most active being examination of radio waves and light from outer space for signs of intelligent communications. [More . . .]
The Search for Extraterrestrial Religion (SETR)
SETI is largely pursued by scientists and engineers who often talk as if the information in extraterrestrial communications will be primarily scientific. However, on Earth many transmissions are broadcast by religious groups, and religion has proved to be a defining feature of terrestrial civilizations. We should therefore consider the possibility that we may encounter some aspect of an advanced civilization's religion in communications intercepted by SETI projects. If we do, that aspect of the signal will be important to understanding the character of the civilization. To be prepared for this, we should investigate type of religion a future civilization might have. We can do this by reviewing the evolutionary path of intelligence as we understand it, to see how religion appeared on Earth and how it might develop elsewhere in the light of a growing scientific understanding of the universe. This is the modest contribution our website seeks to make to ongoing SETI projects. [More . . .]
Spaceship Travel to Other Civilizations (STARSHIP)
The vision of Earth as destined to become a Galactic civilization calls for the development of a space transportation system that can journey to the stars and other planetary systems. A project to develop the technology for a starship over the next hundred years is currently in the early planning stage. [More . . .]
SETI-SETR.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to investigating the possible role of religion in communications from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.