SETI Institute

Hello from our team of scientists! We are the SETI Institute, and our full name is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute. For thousands of years, people have looked up at the night sky and wondered if anyone else is out there. Our entire job is built around trying to answer that very big question: 'Are we alone in the universe?' We are a group of explorers and researchers who use science to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life. We believe that looking for life beyond Earth is one of the most important and exciting quests that humanity can undertake, and we want to share that journey with you.

Our story as an organization began on November 20th, 1984, in California. We were founded by a group of dedicated scientists, including Thomas Pierson and Jill Tarter, who believed that the search for life in the universe deserved a serious, organized effort. Before we were formed, this kind of research was often done by individuals working separately. Our goal was to bring together experts from many different fields to work as a team. We are a non-profit research organization. That’s a special way of saying that our main goal isn’t to make money. Instead, any funding we receive goes directly back into our work, allowing us to buy better equipment, fund new projects, and continue our scientific mission to search for life beyond our planet.

So, how exactly do we search for signs of life on planets that are trillions of miles away? For the most part, we listen very carefully. We use enormous tools called radio telescopes. You can think of them as giant, powerful ears designed to hear radio waves, which are invisible signals that travel through deep space. We point these sensitive telescopes toward distant stars, especially those that are similar to our own Sun. Then, we listen for any signals that don't seem natural. Space is full of natural radio noise from stars, galaxies, and black holes. We are listening for something different—a special pattern, a complex sequence, or a repeated signal that might be a deliberate message from an intelligent civilization far away.

One of our most famous searches was a mission we called Project Phoenix. This important project began in 1995 and involved using some of the world's largest and most powerful radio telescopes. For this search, we carefully selected about 800 nearby stars. These weren't just any stars; they were chosen because they are much like our Sun and could have planets similar to Earth orbiting them. For years, we pointed the telescopes at these star systems and listened. In the end, we didn't hear any signals that we could identify as coming from an alien civilization. However, we still consider Project Phoenix a great success. It was one of the most complete and thorough searches ever performed, and it taught our scientists valuable lessons about how to listen even better and what kinds of signals to look for in the future.

Our work involves much more than just listening for messages from space. Many of our scientists are also focused on a field called astrobiology. This is the study of how life begins and survives in different environments. To understand where life might exist on other planets, we first study life in the most extreme places on our own planet. Our astrobiologists might travel to scorching hot volcanoes, deep-sea vents at the bottom of the ocean, or freezing cold ice sheets in Antarctica. By learning how tiny organisms can survive in these incredibly tough spots on Earth, we get important clues about where we might find life on other worlds, such as on Mars or on the icy moons orbiting the giant planet Jupiter.

Today, our search continues with even more advanced technology. We use newer tools like the Allen Telescope Array, which is a group of many small radio telescopes that work together as one giant ear. We also work closely with partners like NASA, the United States' space agency, to help in the search for planets around other stars, which are called exoplanets. The discovery of thousands of exoplanets has shown us that planets are very common in our galaxy, which makes our search even more exciting. We are dedicated to sharing everything we learn with students and people all over the world. We do this because we believe the search for life in the universe isn't just our mission—it's one of humanity's greatest shared adventures.