Looking for Life in All the Wrong Places: The Atacama, NASA Viking Experiments, and Salts
Release Date: 10/29/2024
Earth 2.0? Maybe Not. Intelligent Life Might Be Far Rarer Than We Think
SETI Live
Get ready for a fascinating deep dive into one of the biggest questions in astrobiology: How common are biological extraterrestrial intelligences in the Milky Way? Host Simon Steel, Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research, is joined by Manuel Scherf and Helmut Lammer (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences) to explore new research that challenges long-held assumptions about “Earth-like” planets and what it really takes for a world to support complex life. Recent work from Scherf, Lammer, and colleagues revisits the idea of Eta-Earth — the number of truly...
info_outline
SkyMapper: Map All the Sky, All the Time
SETI Live
In a special bonus SETI Live, communication specialist Beth Johnson welcomes astronomer and entrepreneur Franck Marchis to introduce SkyMapper, a new global network of smart telescopes and all-sky sensors designed to open the universe to everyone. SkyMapper brings together professional observatories, citizen astronomers, and classrooms into a single, decentralized platform. It enables real scientific discovery — from tracking satellites and meteors to monitoring comets and transient events in real time — while giving students and the public the chance to observe the sky, contribute data,...
info_outline
Baby Moons in the Making? The Discovery of a Moon-Forming Disk
SETI Live
On this episode of SETI Live, host Moiya McTier welcomes two leading researchers—Gabriele Cugno (University of Zürich) & Sierra L. Grant (Carnegie Institution for Science)—to dive into an extraordinary discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): a carbon-rich, moon-forming disk around the distant exoplanetary object CT Cha b, some 625 light-years away. What exactly is a “moon-forming disk”? Why is this discovery a game-changer for our understanding of how moons — and ultimately habitable environments around them — can form? Gabriele and Sierra walk us through...
info_outline
The Moon that Could Support Life: What Cassini Discovered Beneath the Ice of Enceladus
SETI Live
Join host Beth Johnson for a fascinating episode of SETI Live, featuring planetary scientists Dr Georgina Miles and Dr Carly Howett from the University of Oxford. We’ll be unpacking their groundbreaking study showing that Enceladus — one of Saturn’s icy moons — may harbor a stable subsurface ocean capable of supporting life. 📄 For more info: The study “Endogenic heat at Enceladus’ north pole” has just been published in Science Advances: Official press release from the University of Oxford: (Recorded live 20 November 2025.)
info_outline
Where Water Boils the Sky: Steam Worlds and the Search for Life
SETI Live
What happens when a planet is full of water—but too hot for oceans? Meet the “steam worlds,” exotic exoplanets wrapped in thick water vapor and boiling at thousands of degrees. These strange worlds may be far from habitable, but they’re reshaping how scientists think about planets, water, and where life might exist. In this episode of SETI Live, host Beth Johnson talks with Artem Aguichine of the University of California, Santa Cruz, about his new research modeling the interiors and atmospheres of steam worlds—a class of water-rich sub-Neptunes that could dominate our galaxy. With...
info_outline
TRAPPIST‑1 e Revealed: Peering Inside an Exoplanet’s Atmosphere
SETI Live
Join SETI Live host Moiya McTier with Néstor Espinoza (STScI) and Ana Glidden (MIT) for a deep dive into the latest JWST observations of TRAPPIST‑1 e, one of the most tantalizing Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of a nearby star. In this episode, we explore: 🛰 How JWST is peering into TRAPPIST-1 e’s atmosphere (or lack thereof). 🔵 Why the planet almost certainly doesn’t have a thick hydrogen envelope, ruling out a mini-Neptune-like world. 🪨 The emerging hints of a secondary, heavier atmosphere — or the possibility that it’s a bare rock. ⭐️ The challenges posed...
info_outline
Welcome Moiya! A New Host Joins SETI Live
SETI Live
Dr. Moiya McTier is an astrophysicist, folklorist, and science communicator in New York City who loves planets, galaxy evolution, her cat named Cosmo, and old stories about space. She is also the latest addition to our rotating cast of hosts for SETI Live! Join communications specialist Beth Johnson for an interview to introduce Moiya to the community. So please bring your questions and help us welcome her to the team! (Recorded live 3 November 2025.)
info_outline
Comet 3I/ATLAS Perihelion Update
SETI Live
What happens when a visitor from another star system drops by? Join planetary astronomers Franck Marchis and Ariel Graykowski for a special SETI Live all about Comet 3I/ATLAS — only the third known interstellar object ever detected! Astronomers around the world, including citizen scientists in the Unistellar Network, are racing to learn as much as possible about this rare cosmic traveler. 3I/ATLAS is swinging through our neighborhood, reaching perihelion on October 30, 2025, just inside the orbit of Mars — a front-row seat for spacecraft like Lucy and Psyche. While it’s currently hidden...
info_outline
This Microbe Breathes Two Ways! The Bacteria That Challenge Biochemistry
SETI Live
Join host Beth Johnson on SETI Live as she talks with Dr. Eric Boyd from the University of Montana about a groundbreaking discovery: microbes that can breathe in two ways at once! These extraordinary bacteria simultaneously perform both aerobic (oxygen-based) and anaerobic (sulfur-based) respiration, challenging everything we thought we knew about cellular life. Discover how this incredible metabolic flexibility reshapes our understanding of life on Earth, inspires biotechnology innovations, and even informs the search for extraterrestrial life. 🔬 Featured Research: Quanta Magazine...
info_outline
The Hidden Ocean of Ariel: Tidal Forces and the Case for a Watery Past
SETI Live
Could Uranus’s moon Ariel have once harbored a vast, deep ocean beneath its icy crust—perhaps even one that still lingers today? In this episode of SETI Live, host Beth Johnson welcomes Caleb Strom (University of North Dakota) and Alex Pathoff (Planetary Science Institute) to discuss new research revealing evidence that Ariel may have once held a subsurface ocean over 170 kilometers deep. Using geological mapping and tidal‐stress modeling, the team shows how ancient fractures and ridges on Ariel’s surface hint at powerful internal forces and a dynamic, watery past. This discovery...
info_outlineIn 1976, NASA's two Viking spacecraft touched down on Mars, becoming the first successful landers on the red planet. On board Viking 1, the craft carried several biological experiments to search for life. While most scientists consider the results of those experiments to be negative for Martian life, one experiment gave a positive result. The resulting controversy has spanned decades, with numerous scientists weighing in. Now, Dirk Schulze-Makuch from the Centre of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ZAA) at Technische Universität Berlin questions how those experiments were performed in light of what we know of extremely dry environments here on Earth. These Mars analogs, such as the Atacama desert in Chile, show that while microbes can survive in harsh conditions, too much water becomes a problem. And those Viking experiments may have involved too much water. Join Dr. Franck Marchis as he discusses Dr. Schulze-Makuch's recent Nature Astronomy article and how we should follow the salts instead of the water. (Recorded 28 October 2024.)