Jill Tarter explains, throughout her interview, her role in searching for frequencies coming from space to detect signs of technology from intelligent life elsewhere. My burning question to her would be about intelligent life elsewhere being absurdly different from human intelligent life. Are we certain that intelligent life in the universe would send waves in frequencies that are discernible to human technology? If not, then what are other methods we are employing to look for this life?
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Great question! I think Tarter actually addresses this when she mentions "techno-signatures" because they're expanding beyond just radio waves to look for any technological fingerprints that might exist which is because alien intelligence might be totally different from us. I'm curious what specific non-radio methods SETI is developing to account for these "unknown unknowns."
This is a very interesting question, Ashlie. I honestly had never thought about this before, but it is important to address the plausible notion that other forms of life may have developed forms of technology different from ours that functions in a manner that we can't yet detect. Therefore, a follow-up question that I would add to your proposed question is: Is it possible that we fail to develop sufficiently developed technology to communicate with other forms of life?