Power Point Viewgraphs for recent public presentations at the Fiske Planetarium

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The Birth of Stars and Planets Wide field images from ground based telescopes and high resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope reveal parsec scale jets, and nascent proto-planetary disks that are being evaporated by the light of nearby massive young stars. Star foramtion research is begining to shed light on the formation of planetary systems.

The Quest for Life Beyond the Solar System. How common are extra-terrestrial civilizations? What type of signals might such civilizations produce? Can we detect such signals? Our current understanding of star and planet formation indicates that roughly 1% of forming stars may eventually produce habitable environments. SETI searches for extraterrestrial civilizations can look for three types of signal: [1] BEACONS established for the explicit purpose of being detected. However, such beacons must radiate at least 10^{12} to 10^{16} Watts to be visible to current SETI searches. I argue that energetics and economics makes it VERY UNLIKELY that any civilizations establish such beacons. [2] Evesdroping on INTERSTELLAR COMMUNICATIONS. It is argued that advanced spacefaring civilizations migrate their internal communications to very high frequencies (x-rays and gamma rays) and utilize gravitational lensing by stars to concentrate their broadcast power. Detecting such signals will next next to impossible. [3] LEAKAGE SIGNALS such as those we unintentionally launch into space. Our own civilization radiates about 10^8 Watts. This is our best chance to succeed with SETI. I derive a relationship between the lifetime of a extra-terrestrial civilizations in the radio broadcasting state and the most likely minimum distance to such a civilization. If the duration of the radio broadcasting phase is only 100 years, then the nearest civilization is likely to be at least 10,000 light years away. However, detecting a leakage signal from such a civilization will require a radio telescope with a collecting area of at least 100 square kilometers. Therefore, none of the current SETI searches are likely to succeed.

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