Hello!
On Tuesday, we launched “Are we alone in the universe?”, a citizen science collaboration where anyone can contribute to the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. We are thrilled and grateful that more than 2000 volunteers have contributed over 100,000 classifications in just a few days. Our first batch of data with ~7500 images is almost exhausted, and we will upload a second batch soon. The discussions on the Zooniverse Talk boards have also been fascinating and rewarding, with an offer by a participant (@fnogal) to translate the project into Portuguese, identifications of unusual signals and potentially missing classes, and a description of audio analogs of the radio signals by two participants (@Drmike8888 and @satsig).
On Thursday, we hosted a Zoom webinar to describe details of the UCLA SETI search and the Zooniverse collaboration. The event was moderated by Fritz Demopoulos (UCLA SETI donor and Board of Advisors of UCLA Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences). The speakers were Jean-Luc Margot (Professor, UCLA Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences and UCLA Physics and Astronomy) and Megan Li (Graduate Student, UCLA Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences Department). Attendees asked many interesting questions. We did not have time to answer all the questions and we will try to answer them in future blog posts or Zoom events.
Los Angeles Times writer Corinne Purtill wrote a thoughtful and engaging feature about our collaboration. To our surprise and delight, the article, “UCLA is asking for the public’s help in finding signs of extraterrestrial intelligence,” made the front page of the print edition (If you hit a paywall, you may try an alternate link). Jacob Margolis of LAist.com also wrote a fun segment that aired in Los Angeles. And Sarah Al-Ahmed of The Planetary Society produced a wonderful podcast about the project. We are grateful to all of them for promoting our collaboration, and to all of you who are inviting your social and professional networks to join us. We are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
We are excited to see what the future of the collaboration holds.
With thanks and appreciation,
UCLA SETI