1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:57,280 RADIO: We're panning southwest. 4 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,000 We should be in a position to start the survey in 20 minutes. 5 00:02:13,080 --> 00:02:16,680 So we had a tip off, a breakthrough last night that there was an unusual 6 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:19,280 transmission in the direction of Voyager. 7 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:25,000 Nasa suspects it's a fault. 8 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,280 But our team here picked up multiple narrowband signals. 9 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:36,440 I don't think we can discount this being genuine. 10 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:17,320 Extraterrestrial life, 11 00:03:17,320 --> 00:03:22,320 the scientific basis for extraterrestrial life is so clear. 12 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,680 In the language of the US Department of Defence, 13 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:32,040 unidentified aerial phenomenon, which add fuel to the belief of 14 00:03:32,040 --> 00:03:33,920 some that we are not alone. 15 00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:41,120 It's looking like most stars may, in fact, have planets. 16 00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:46,400 There may be a tremendous number of possible habitable worlds. 17 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:49,400 So you see this as a national security issue? 18 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:50,800 Absolutely. 19 00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:54,240 They're going to have to acknowledge that there is something 20 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:56,240 there we need to be concerned about. 21 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:02,800 This is a goal of Nasa - to understand the origin, evolution 22 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:05,440 and distribution of life in the universe. 23 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:11,000 It's very important that the facts are heard and fully understood, 24 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:15,360 and that this body is able to take the appropriate decisions. 25 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:19,160 If there is a signal out there, 26 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:22,360 we're getting closer and closer and closer to it. 27 00:05:11,400 --> 00:05:16,320 First of all, your first concern is, is the signal real? Right? 28 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:20,200 Secondly, is it coming from the sky 29 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:23,960 or coming from the local environment? 30 00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:29,360 Does it have any information content? 31 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:34,960 Have we ever seen this before? 32 00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:37,560 And you just work through a whole lot 33 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:41,960 of different dependent questions. 34 00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:46,640 If nature doesn't give you an explanation, 35 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:50,600 then you have to be prepared to think about non-natural, 36 00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:56,280 artificial sort of technological civilisation explanations 37 00:05:56,280 --> 00:06:00,200 for the data. You have to be open to that. 38 00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:06,920 If we do detect a signal from somewhere and it looks 39 00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:12,240 like it's of intelligent origin, what's going to happen is an alert 40 00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:15,320 is going to go out and every telescope in the world 41 00:06:15,320 --> 00:06:18,720 is going to turn to that location and start gathering data. 42 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:01,440 The transmission was picked up at 8.4 megahertz, but extended 43 00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:05,680 analysis has shown it was sweeping through multiple frequencies. 44 00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:10,360 Margaret is probably best placed to give the details. 45 00:07:10,360 --> 00:07:14,640 So our main interest is the power required to simultaneously transmit 46 00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:17,040 across so many frequencies like this. 47 00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:20,800 If it's genuine, it would rule out any current technology we know of. 48 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:32,800 Voyager is out of sight for us now, so we're putting together requests 49 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:34,800 for telescope time with Parkes. 50 00:07:36,920 --> 00:07:40,800 We've also seen what looks like complex modulation in the data... 51 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:51,080 ..and a powerful sustained narrowband transmission 52 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:52,880 at 1420 megahertz. 53 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:09,360 We've kept it amongst ourselves for now, but I imagine 54 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:11,960 it's going to be pretty common knowledge by tomorrow. 55 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:27,040 All right. Suppose that you had an old-fashioned analogue radio 56 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:29,120 with a dial, 57 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:33,080 and you turn that dial and you hear a lot of hiss and noise. 58 00:08:34,960 --> 00:08:39,400 And suddenly that noise goes away and you hear a very clear tone. 59 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,160 So that's the kind of thing that we're looking for. 60 00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:53,520 So we're trying to think, you know, where might we all think 61 00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:56,320 was a special sort of frequency to use? 62 00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:01,560 You look out in the universe, what you see is lots 63 00:09:01,560 --> 00:09:03,680 and lots of hydrogen. 64 00:09:03,680 --> 00:09:07,280 And it just happens that there's a natural process where you have 65 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:09,120 lots and lots of hydrogen. 66 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:11,440 It produces this radiation. 67 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:15,520 There's this radio emission at this particular frequency, 68 00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:17,840 1420 megahertz. 69 00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:26,360 So one thought is that this is a place that other civilisations 70 00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:30,600 would observe because they will also be doing astronomy and they will 71 00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:33,000 also be looking at hydrogen in the universe. 72 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:37,400 So 1420 megahertz, they will have built receivers, but also 73 00:09:37,400 --> 00:09:40,360 probably built transmitters at this frequency. 74 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:48,160 So 1420 megahertz is a frequency we know about, but it's also a 75 00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:50,240 frequency that the aliens know about. 76 00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:53,360 So right away you can say, "OK, if they're really going to try 77 00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:55,880 "and get in touch with anybody, maybe they would start out by 78 00:09:55,880 --> 00:09:57,840 "broadcasting at that frequency." 79 00:09:57,840 --> 00:09:59,760 CRACKLING 80 00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:04,000 You sort of rendezvous at this frequency that every 81 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:07,120 technical society in the universe will know. 82 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:12,840 In all the time we've been listening, we've only picked up 83 00:10:12,840 --> 00:10:15,520 a handful of signals that look promising. 84 00:10:15,520 --> 00:10:19,400 Perhaps the best known of these was back in the 1970s. 85 00:10:32,880 --> 00:10:35,920 ARCHIVE: Over the last 20 years, several groups of radio astronomers 86 00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:38,840 have from time to time taken part in this attempt to tune in 87 00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:40,080 to the Galactic Club. 88 00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:43,680 And for a few of them, it's become a full-time occupation. 89 00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:03,040 So 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 90 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:07,000 the observatory computers record the sounds of the universe, 91 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:09,840 and all they ever hear is a hardly changing hiss. 92 00:11:11,960 --> 00:11:13,280 Except once. 93 00:11:25,480 --> 00:11:30,480 We were detecting signals based on their strength. 94 00:11:32,480 --> 00:11:38,600 And we didn't have enough space to store vast quantities of data. 95 00:11:38,600 --> 00:11:43,320 So the idea was we simply printed out. 96 00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:47,440 Kerchunk! 97 00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:50,480 That was how the printer sounded when it printed out 98 00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:54,600 all 120 characters at once. 99 00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:08,760 The whole system was working without anybody 100 00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:10,800 being at the radio observatory. 101 00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:15,480 SLIGHT RUMBLE 102 00:12:23,920 --> 00:12:27,240 There's always background noise. 103 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:31,360 When this radio signal came through, 104 00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:37,200 starting out at six, that meant six times the background noise. 105 00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:43,920 Now, the next letter E, the E represented a signal strength 106 00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:46,440 of 14 times the background noise. 107 00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:51,920 Q is 26 times the background noise. 108 00:12:56,680 --> 00:13:01,520 At the peak, U was 30 times the background noise. 109 00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:04,680 WHOOSHING, ELECTRONIC NOISES 110 00:13:09,280 --> 00:13:14,400 Then we dropped off J, and then five. 111 00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:17,160 And then the signal was gone. 112 00:13:26,680 --> 00:13:28,640 I recognised immediately, 113 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:31,320 we've got something very interesting. 114 00:13:36,160 --> 00:13:39,200 I wrote the word "wow" 115 00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:42,440 in the margin of the printout. 116 00:13:43,920 --> 00:13:48,600 Wow, of course, indicates something very interesting, and this turned 117 00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:55,560 out to be the strongest narrowband signal that we ever detected. 118 00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:05,480 So why was the wow signal considered to be a good candidate 119 00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:06,960 for an ET signal? 120 00:14:06,960 --> 00:14:12,480 Because it moved across the sky with the speed of the stars. 121 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:23,560 And so that tells you that anything that's, you know, a transmitter 122 00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:26,960 up there, it also will move across the sky at the same speed 123 00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:29,440 that the stars apparently move across the sky. 124 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:32,120 And this did all that, so it looked good. 125 00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:39,920 The director of the observatory wrote a letter after the detection. 126 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:46,120 He said, "The wow signal is highly suggestive of extraterrestrial 127 00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:51,920 "intelligent origin, but little more can be said until it returns 128 00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:53,240 "for further study." 129 00:14:57,600 --> 00:14:59,760 It was not explained by something on Earth. 130 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:02,640 It is not explained by something that we know about stars. 131 00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:06,480 It was not explained by something else that we know about in space. 132 00:15:06,480 --> 00:15:10,080 So, as far as we know, this was an anomalous discovery. 133 00:15:10,080 --> 00:15:15,440 It matches many of the hallmarks that scientists expect alien signals 134 00:15:15,440 --> 00:15:19,400 to have, and we still have no other explanation for it. 135 00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:27,120 I've talked to people at Ohio State about this and asked them, what do 136 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:30,680 they think it is? And they basically sort of throw up their hands. 137 00:15:30,680 --> 00:15:32,640 Nobody knows. Nobody knows. 138 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:36,320 And that's the problem with finding something only once. 139 00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:39,560 It's very hard to study something that you only see once. 140 00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:49,080 If the wow signal were to come through now, it would be much 141 00:15:49,080 --> 00:15:51,880 different than what we saw. 142 00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:54,520 Technology has changed tremendously. 143 00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,920 Well, I'm hoping we actually do discover signals 144 00:15:59,920 --> 00:16:03,040 from extraterrestrial civilisations. 145 00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:06,360 I'm hoping I live long enough to see that. 146 00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:13,000 I've only got a few years left since I'm 82, 147 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:19,720 and I would like to see something during my remaining lifetime - 148 00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:21,640 however short that may be. 149 00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:43,520 What does this sound like to you? 150 00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:50,400 Random noise? 151 00:16:52,280 --> 00:16:53,440 Radio static? 152 00:16:55,720 --> 00:16:57,360 Maybe a muffled voice. 153 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:01,840 I'm Anita Kay. 154 00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:05,760 Welcome to The Insight. 155 00:18:24,080 --> 00:18:26,160 Are we alone in the universe? 156 00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:31,920 A new discovery revealed this week has many thinking maybe we aren't. 157 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:33,600 So Richard Southern joins us... 158 00:18:33,600 --> 00:18:35,560 A mysterious radio signal... 159 00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:38,640 ..from outer space? No, Francis, mysterious radio signals 160 00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:42,000 haven't picked up strong radio signals about... 161 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:46,320 They saw one area that had a signal, 162 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:47,960 but the signal... ..rhythm, too. 163 00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:51,120 So can we imagine that it's likely that this signal we're picking up 164 00:18:51,120 --> 00:18:53,560 was sent by thinking beings? 165 00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:58,480 Just the idea of intelligence elsewhere in the universe 166 00:18:58,480 --> 00:19:01,200 has set the Twitterverse all a-twitter. 167 00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:08,880 WHINING 168 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:13,000 That was filth. 169 00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:28,400 Let's turn now to our science editor, David Shukman. 170 00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:32,680 David, these seem like intriguing reports. What do we actually know? 171 00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:36,360 Well, there's a lot of excitement about this around the world. 172 00:19:36,360 --> 00:19:39,160 And with that, a great deal of speculation. 173 00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:41,640 Some of it, frankly, pretty far-fetched, 174 00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:44,320 some sounding more plausible. 175 00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:48,240 What we're pretty certain about is that the signal did indeed 176 00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:51,840 come from space, and that it was really powerful. 177 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:55,320 But beyond that, frankly, no-one's got much of a clue. 178 00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:05,600 During the course of the day, 179 00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:08,000 I've been talking to a lot of different scientists, 180 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,440 and a few of them are floating the notion that the signal 181 00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:15,760 may contain some kind of data - information, but in a form 182 00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:17,840 that we've never encountered before. 183 00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:24,520 And if that's the case - and it's a massive if - obviously 184 00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:28,800 it may take years before we get to grips with what this is all about. 185 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:54,080 The question about deciphering messages is always so complicated 186 00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:56,760 if you don't know what you're looking for. 187 00:20:56,760 --> 00:20:58,280 WHALES CALL 188 00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:03,880 Whales are a really good study object. 189 00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:07,640 They are in some ways the closest thing that we have to aliens 190 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:09,240 here on Earth. 191 00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:15,880 Whales are highly intelligent 192 00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:20,440 and their environment is entirely different from ours. 193 00:21:22,120 --> 00:21:25,400 The patterns that we hear are clearly patterns 194 00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:27,040 that we recognise as music. 195 00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:28,480 They're repeated patterns. 196 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:30,520 They are pitched. 197 00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:34,680 It is a form of vocalising 198 00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:38,120 that we would think of as the equivalent of singing. 199 00:21:38,120 --> 00:21:41,680 But even at that level, we don't really know what it's for. 200 00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:47,160 Is it music? Is it language? What does it mean? 201 00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:49,200 How is it used? Who responds? 202 00:21:52,360 --> 00:21:56,640 I think at the best of times, it can give us a sense of 203 00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:59,520 how difficult the task at hand is! 204 00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:03,720 And how many layers we have to cut through in order to get somewhere. 205 00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:15,080 When I look at how Hollywood portrays science fiction, connecting 206 00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:19,800 to contacts and so on, one of the things that I think is unreal 207 00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:24,240 is the fact that we so often talk to people like ourselves. 208 00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:28,160 People that can readily communicate, have similar ambitions, 209 00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:29,480 similar responses. 210 00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:37,040 But when I think about intelligent life and the variety of it, 211 00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:41,080 when I think the fact that, you know, intelligent life on Earth, 212 00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:43,040 we've got dogs, we've got apes. 213 00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:48,600 We've got octopi that have their intelligence 214 00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:50,600 in their arms, not in their head. 215 00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:55,400 We can't talk to most of the creatures on Earth 216 00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,080 in an intelligent way. 217 00:22:57,080 --> 00:23:00,520 How are we going to talk to the intelligent civilisations? 218 00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:05,560 I'm not sure we'll ever understand them. 219 00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:07,560 That is a big challenge. 220 00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:15,640 You know, one of the things that we often forget is that a sense 221 00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:20,600 of timescale might be incredibly different 222 00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:25,400 for a technological civilisation that evolved somewhere else. 223 00:23:27,120 --> 00:23:34,080 They might think in a much faster time or a much slower time, 224 00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:38,000 and the rate at which things change 225 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:42,080 and present information, as humans, 226 00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:45,440 we just might not be able to appreciate it at all. 227 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:55,560 It's not, you know, "Here's a movie!" Right? 228 00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:57,840 It's not going to be that way. It's not going to be, 229 00:23:57,840 --> 00:23:59,240 "Here's a movie of the aliens!" 230 00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,280 "Oh, you want to Facetime with the alien?" Right? 231 00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:02,960 That's not what's going to happen. 232 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:05,160 So it's going to be a mixture of responses. 233 00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:09,600 But for those who are, you know, on team science, it's going to 234 00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:13,520 be incredibly exciting because now we have new stuff 235 00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:17,200 to study that is unlike anything we've seen before. 236 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,400 Hello to everyone new who's joining us today. 237 00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:58,120 So our teams have been running multiple scenarios over the past few 238 00:24:58,120 --> 00:25:01,920 days, and it's looking increasingly unlikely that the signal 239 00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:05,000 would have originated from the Voyager craft itself. 240 00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:13,800 Our best guess is that we picked up a reflection from another source, 241 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:17,280 or maybe something that actually crossed Voyager's line of sight. 242 00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,480 We just started to model different potential transmitting bodies. 243 00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,080 But it's too early to draw any conclusions. 244 00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,800 I'd say there's decades of work to be done here. 245 00:26:02,120 --> 00:26:04,160 What's the point? I mean, what if the aliens 246 00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:05,760 are living here on Earth already? 247 00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,680 Here's my theory. First of all, I love how they say 248 00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,360 they also deny it's part of any secret government operation. 249 00:26:12,360 --> 00:26:14,520 Well, it's secret. They're not going to tell us! 250 00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,040 Even Nasa people, ex-Nasa people that come out and say, 251 00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,480 "Look, mate, aliens..." They retire and they're like, 252 00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:21,760 "Aliens are real, bro. 253 00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,600 "Like, they just are. Like, we're fully aware of them." But they don't 254 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:26,960 tell people because it would cause too much of an uproar. 255 00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,280 Anyone that says that in the entire un... 256 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:32,320 It's been days now, 257 00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:36,520 and the so-called Voyager signal is still puzzling scientists 258 00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:40,120 around the world. Where it came from and what it might mean 259 00:26:40,120 --> 00:26:42,520 are being studied intensely right now. 260 00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:49,920 And in the absence of anything concrete, all kinds of unfounded 261 00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:53,800 ideas - some of them quite unsettling - are being stirred up. 262 00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,280 Can everyone please chill out about this alien signal? 263 00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,560 Freaking out that they're coming to get us... Call the Avengers... 264 00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,120 I hate to break it to you guys, but it's a hoax. 265 00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,720 Alexa, do you believe in aliens? 266 00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:18,880 This is one of those things that some people 267 00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:20,800 like to decide for themselves. 268 00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:24,800 I feel like, you know, it's their language we don't really understand 269 00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:26,680 but they're trying to make contact. 270 00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:28,880 And they are coming for us. 271 00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,040 We need to be prepared. 272 00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:34,360 Make sure you have enough supplies and get ready for Armageddon, 273 00:27:34,360 --> 00:27:37,200 because this is going to be all out 274 00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:41,480 intergalactic war. Full-scale alien apocalypse. 275 00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:48,200 With such an unclear signal, without a very obvious intent 276 00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,840 and message, I think there would be a lot of uncertainty. 277 00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,120 And uncertainty breeds anxiety. 278 00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:08,240 We do see disturbance in people's day-to-day routines when big events 279 00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:10,760 happen. We saw this certainly with the global pandemic, 280 00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:13,720 that people rushed out because they foresaw 281 00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,920 that there would be circumstances in which supplies would be limited. 282 00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,000 I think you'll see an increase in people feeling that there 283 00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,480 has to be something I can do, so what can I do to prepare? 284 00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:28,080 And I will go out and I will buy tinned food, I will buy toilet 285 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:31,200 paper, I'll stock up on water just in case. 286 00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,960 And that's a way of reassuring yourself that you still have some 287 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:35,600 control over the situation. 288 00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,600 I'm sure a lot of things would be happening 289 00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:19,720 and many different reactions. 290 00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,280 But I can assure you the scientific community would be really focused 291 00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,360 on trying to understand the nature of that signal 292 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,000 and its characteristics, and where it was coming from. 293 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,240 Is it far away? Or, you know, maybe it's even in the solar system 294 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,160 or passing through the solar system. 295 00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,800 So, you know, we'd be working hard and trying to understand 296 00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:40,400 those kinds of things. 297 00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,960 We've had a number of automatic warnings over the last few hours. 298 00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,080 It's coming from multiple observatories. 299 00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:12,360 Chile and the Canaries both flagged objects of interest. 300 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:17,440 We'll keep you updated on the situation. 301 00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:52,920 With the Spaceguard Survey, Congress mandated that we study the 302 00:31:52,920 --> 00:32:00,240 sky and find at least 90% of all asteroids a kilometre or greater. 303 00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:05,440 So because of this, a number of surveys have started. 304 00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:09,920 Right now, there's about seven looking at the entire sky 305 00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:13,440 every night in an automated format to search for moving objects. 306 00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,440 Without these surveys, I think it's fair to say that we would 307 00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,920 have never made the discovery that we made back in 2017. 308 00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:40,440 We've never seen anything like this before. 309 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:41,880 We've never seen anything like it. 310 00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,320 And we don't really have any idea of how you'd make it. 311 00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,000 There's lots of theoreticians scratching their heads 312 00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:48,680 and coming up with ideas. 313 00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:52,120 But at the moment, we've only got a very small amount of data, 314 00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,880 so it's difficult to tell what it is. 315 00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:56,600 Could it be aliens? 316 00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:58,680 It could be. Um... 317 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:00,320 STATION RETUNES, STATIC 318 00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:18,640 It was a visitor from elsewhere in our galaxy. 319 00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,320 A relic from another planetary system. 320 00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:39,160 My colleague called me at home and said, "Karen, I think 321 00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,880 "we have found an interstellar object." 322 00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:44,000 I was silent for a minute. 323 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:48,000 I was thinking, "Oh, shit! This shouldn't be today. 324 00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,960 "I just want to relax!" But then I got very excited. 325 00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:04,240 So we had about five or six days in which to do all of the science. 326 00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,000 You're pulling in long days - 18, 19-hour days. 327 00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,400 Everybody was. And I was coordinating everyone, 328 00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:19,120 bringing in the data, analysing the data. 329 00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,400 And what this meant was I lived in my office. 330 00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,880 Air mattress, sleeping bag - it's quite cosy. 331 00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,400 You wake up after a few hours of sleep and get back to the data. 332 00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,160 But the first really big surprise, I think, was 333 00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:44,120 how much it changed in brightness. 334 00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:55,120 If you have reflected light coming from the big side of an object, 335 00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:56,680 it will be bright. 336 00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:01,040 And then as it rotates, you will get a small amount of reflected light. 337 00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:05,080 So you can use this brightness measurement as a measurement 338 00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:08,120 of effectively how elongated something is. 339 00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,920 I think it is a really unusual object. 340 00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,440 The shape, you know, is so extreme. 341 00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,480 You know, it's sort of ten times longer than it is broad. 342 00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:30,200 I don't really know what you call the thing because it didn't 343 00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,800 really have the normal properties you would expect from a comet. 344 00:35:37,720 --> 00:35:39,400 We were rather shocked. 345 00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:43,120 There's nothing in our solar system that is that elongated. 346 00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:46,360 Typically, if you have elongated things, eventually they'll hit 347 00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,000 something and break. So it's just very unusual 348 00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:50,920 to have something that long. 349 00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:57,400 We contacted two people who were specialists in the Hawaiian 350 00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,200 language, and we said, 351 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:03,560 "You have two days to devise a Hawaiian name for us." 352 00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,880 And so they did. By Sunday, they came up with a name 353 00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:11,160 and they suggested Oumuamua, which means scout or messenger 354 00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,960 from the distant past, reaching out to us. 355 00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,680 It came in going very fast, and there were two things 356 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,360 that were different about it that made it quite puzzling. 357 00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:32,920 One was its shape, and it also moved in such a way that it appeared 358 00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:35,920 that there was another force on it other than gravity. 359 00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:37,920 Now, what might that have been? 360 00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:42,080 Comets do this all the time, and the other force is the material 361 00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:43,640 being ejected from their surface. 362 00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,200 So was it cometary in nature? 363 00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:50,160 Well, there was no evidence for a cometary tail. 364 00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:54,720 So what was happening was a bit of a mystery. 365 00:37:02,240 --> 00:37:04,000 Not everybody thought it was, you know, 366 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,280 just a natural thing - just an old rock. 367 00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:09,000 Some people thought maybe it was part of an alien craft. 368 00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:14,320 And in particular, it was the fact that it didn't sort of, 369 00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:16,280 you know, move smoothly. 370 00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,600 It seemed to be slightly accelerating. 371 00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:20,520 It was picking up speed. 372 00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:24,600 It was moving like it had some sort of engine 373 00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:26,200 connected to it or something. 374 00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:34,080 The jury is out on what 'Oumuamua really was. 375 00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,880 Observatories around the world discovered that the object 376 00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:43,280 was a lowly voyager. 377 00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:47,680 Was 'Oumuamua an alien artefact? 378 00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,480 Observatories all around and above the world 379 00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,400 focused on this approximately half-mile long object 380 00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,160 to learn as much as possible about this cosmic visitor 381 00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,280 before it moved too far away to see. 382 00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,320 The Breakthrough Project decided to take 383 00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,480 one of the big radio telescopes - the Green Bank Telescope - 384 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,520 and listen in case there were signals coming from 'Oumuamua. 385 00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:14,120 And several of the press asked me, "Isn't this a silly experiment?" 386 00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:15,320 And I said, "No. 387 00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,480 "You know, what if it's alien technology? 388 00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:19,440 "Wouldn't you want to have done the experiment? 389 00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:20,720 "This is your one chance. 390 00:38:20,720 --> 00:38:23,000 "It's a simple, easy experiment." 391 00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,600 But nothing was detected from any of the radio experiments. 392 00:40:30,720 --> 00:40:34,680 The idea of aliens, here, is so scary. 393 00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,000 I will be very curious and with many questions. 394 00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,440 How they think, how they see us. 395 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:50,320 This thing was terrifying. 396 00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:52,000 I trust no alien. 397 00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,840 You know, I think is it time for me to move to another planet yet? 398 00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:58,400 What else is this alien race maybe capable of? 399 00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:23,760 NEWSREADER: The consensus among scientists 400 00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:27,840 is that although the object is moving extremely rapidly, 401 00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:32,480 it does not pose any danger to us here on Earth. 402 00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:35,400 And while this could prove to be one of the most important 403 00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:37,720 scientific discoveries of all time, 404 00:41:37,720 --> 00:41:41,600 it's triggered a frenzy of diplomatic activity. 405 00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,000 There have been discussions around the clock 406 00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:48,480 at the UN, and there's due to be an emergency special session. 407 00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:52,000 Debate is likely to be heated as the world's governments 408 00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:56,640 grapple with how best to react to this unprecedented event. 409 00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:05,880 ..wishes to make known its support for the proposition 410 00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:09,000 to move all nuclear defences to an elevated level of preparedness 411 00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,160 on the condition that a new working coalition.... 412 00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:13,400 Transmission is changing shortly. 413 00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:15,360 China is... 414 00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:31,120 Nations sharing all data connected to Interstellar Artefact 1F2SJ U1. 415 00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:00,960 The discussion on air and space at the United Nations 416 00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:08,720 started with the launch of Sputnik by the Russians in 1957. 417 00:43:08,720 --> 00:43:10,320 And there was a fear that, 418 00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,720 between Russia and the United States, 419 00:43:12,720 --> 00:43:16,160 there would be an arms race in outer space. 420 00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:25,680 At the 188th meeting 421 00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:31,000 of the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in 1977, 422 00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:36,360 the question was asked that in view of the tremendous impact 423 00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:41,520 any contact with an extraterrestrial civilisation would have 424 00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:45,520 upon our planet, can this committee, its asks, 425 00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,680 continue to ignore this possible development? 426 00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:54,360 Most of the time, the Member States do not want to discuss 427 00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,720 extraterrestrial intelligence or life 428 00:43:57,720 --> 00:44:03,440 because it's assumed that this issue will trivialise all the other issues 429 00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:05,560 that you're talking about. 430 00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,880 Talking about space debris, weaponization in space - 431 00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,960 those are very important topics. 432 00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:17,280 But if there is extraterrestrial intelligence, it will trivialise 433 00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:19,240 the other discussions. 434 00:44:22,720 --> 00:44:25,440 So if there was an interstellar object, 435 00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:30,400 that this was obviously emanating radio signals, 436 00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:34,160 we invite the scientists from all over the world 437 00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,720 to give its views to the subcommittee 438 00:44:36,720 --> 00:44:38,160 on what we should do next. 439 00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:40,040 What does this mean, actually? 440 00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:49,000 It's very important the facts are heard and fully understood, 441 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:54,560 and that this body is able to take the appropriate decisions... 442 00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:59,000 You cannot have a quick solution in the United Nations. 443 00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:01,880 You can't. It has to be extraordinary. 444 00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,000 And if it's to be extraordinary, 445 00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:06,400 then there has to be an extraordinary effort 446 00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:09,680 from the office of the Secretary General 447 00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:13,040 to decide what to do next. 448 00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:27,320 It feels so surreal to be saying this, 449 00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:31,680 but they're simply calling it The Artefact - 450 00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,440 an object that may contain technology 451 00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,040 formed somewhere other than Earth. 452 00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:56,120 What's amazing is how this whole extraordinary saga began 453 00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:58,320 with just one signal. 454 00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:00,000 That's all we had to go on. 455 00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:04,640 It took another five or six days before the first image appeared. 456 00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,480 And when it did, it was really grainy. 457 00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:11,560 Now, just in the last few hours, the first detailed pictures 458 00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:13,080 have started to appear, 459 00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:17,600 and they'll be vital for helping us understand what this object is 460 00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:19,040 and where it came from. 461 00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:28,080 From what we've seen so far, 462 00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:31,640 the object appears to be tumbling through space. 463 00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:35,560 There's no sign of it moving under any kind of control, 464 00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:40,200 an extraordinary thought given that it's almost 200 miles long 465 00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,040 and travelling at speeds we've never seen before. 466 00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:47,480 These images raise so many questions. 467 00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:53,200 Is this a structure in its own right, 468 00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,640 or could it once have been part of something larger? 469 00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:02,800 Is it genuinely artificial? 470 00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:05,040 And if so, what created it? 471 00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:12,480 And perhaps most important of all, where did it come from? 472 00:47:30,240 --> 00:47:35,720 If I was on a desert island and a broken bottle washed up on shore, 473 00:47:35,720 --> 00:47:38,000 that would be information that'd be really exciting. 474 00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:42,200 It would mean I am not as deserted on this island as I thought I was, 475 00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:43,920 and I think that's what this would tell us. 476 00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:46,600 It wouldn't tell us everything we wanted to know about the aliens, 477 00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:49,560 but it would tell us we're not as alone as we thought we were. 478 00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:54,440 If there was some sort of alien artefact that would come 479 00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:56,080 through the solar system, 480 00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:58,880 you would do as much to characterise it. 481 00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:01,560 What is it made of? How big is it? How dense is it? 482 00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,000 Is it spinning? 483 00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,560 These are the things that help you understand what it is. 484 00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:09,520 So you have to rush and get the data first, 485 00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:12,520 and then you interpret the data afterwards. 486 00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:16,000 We'd be able to look at the light that was being reflected off it 487 00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:17,840 and also being absorbed by it. 488 00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:20,120 And that might tell us about the chemical composition 489 00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:21,400 of what we're looking at. 490 00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:23,760 We'd be able to tell if it's a geological object, 491 00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:26,680 if it was made up of rock or if it was made up of metal, 492 00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:29,480 and what kind of material it was. 493 00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:33,800 If it was artificial, we might be able to tell what the different 494 00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,520 chemical composition of the artificial material is. 495 00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:49,520 This is absolutely real. 496 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,600 It is something that they just cannot explain. 497 00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:56,000 And it's something that they are taking seriously. 498 00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:59,000 The United States military, which is often blamed 499 00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,120 for being the cause of UFOs, is clueless. 500 00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:04,000 They have no idea what it is either. 501 00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,480 So the question mark is what is it? 502 00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:11,920 So you see this as a national security issue? 503 00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:13,400 Absolutely. 504 00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:17,000 They're going to have to acknowledge that there is something there 505 00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,000 we need to be concerned about from a national security standpoint. 506 00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:23,000 That we don't even understand how you could build something 507 00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:27,000 that would do that. We don't even understand the science behind it. 508 00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,280 This is a whole difference of kind, not degree. 509 00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,280 In the language of the US Department of Defense, 510 00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,000 unidentified aerial phenomena, 511 00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:40,600 which add fuel to the belief of some that we are not alone. 512 00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,280 You're back with Anita Kay. 513 00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,080 America tonight is split down the middle. 514 00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,840 Gun sales have more than doubled across the country, 515 00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:13,360 with many convinced of impending invasion. 516 00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:18,240 For many others, however, 517 00:50:18,240 --> 00:50:20,880 the events of the last few days have been cause 518 00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:22,840 for intense celebration 519 00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:26,400 and represent one of the most significant moments 520 00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:28,040 in human history. 521 00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:38,200 Oh, nice! 522 00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:44,320 Tonight, enthusiasts from all over the state are out in force 523 00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:47,400 with their telescopes attempting to become part of history. 524 00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,000 The race is on to identify new features 525 00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:54,280 of this strange object. 526 00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:55,720 Wow! 527 00:50:55,720 --> 00:50:58,200 Amazing! It's... 528 00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:01,800 As you can see, it's a party atmosphere, 529 00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:05,360 but everybody is just enjoying the thrill. 530 00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,200 CHANTING 531 00:51:44,240 --> 00:51:46,760 NEWSCASTER: Tonight, the first studies into the Artefact 532 00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:48,000 are being released. 533 00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:51,400 One suggests it could be made of a kind of metal, 534 00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:54,480 supporting the claim that it is indeed artificial. 535 00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,880 Another intriguing line of inquiry is working out 536 00:51:57,880 --> 00:51:59,240 where it's come from. 537 00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:04,120 And because Nasa and the European Space Agency 538 00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:07,640 have developed ways of studying distant stars, 539 00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:12,840 it is possible that we could peer back along the object's path 540 00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:15,760 to look for evidence of habitable worlds. 541 00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:27,600 When I started studying science, we didn't know about exoplanets. 542 00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:31,880 The idea that we can detect planets around other star systems 543 00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:34,080 is something within just the last 20 or 30 years 544 00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:36,440 that we've been able to do. 545 00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:41,000 The fact that exoplanets actually exist, 546 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:44,000 their reality is incredibly recent. 547 00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,880 It's in the '90s that we found the first such planet. 548 00:52:52,240 --> 00:52:56,360 BILL CLINTON: I did not have sexual relations with that woman. 549 00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,400 America's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first pictures 550 00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:08,000 of a planet outside the solar system. 551 00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:10,360 It was found near two developing stars, 552 00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:13,160 450 lightyears from Earth. 553 00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:15,800 Astronomers believe it's the first concrete evidence 554 00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:18,360 there are other planets in deep space. 555 00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:31,000 Up until the last couple of decades, 556 00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:34,000 we didn't know that exoplanets even existed. 557 00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:35,320 We thought they might. 558 00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:36,680 We hoped they might. 559 00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:39,160 And looking at our own solar system, we thought, 560 00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:40,720 "Well, surely they must." 561 00:53:40,720 --> 00:53:46,000 But we didn't have the technology to be able to identify them. 562 00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:48,320 And then Kepler came along, and now we do. 563 00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:05,000 When I was thinking of Kepler and building a mission, 564 00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,240 one of the things I recognised was that NASA 565 00:54:08,240 --> 00:54:10,360 had a strategic objective - 566 00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:14,360 determine the extent of life in our universe. 567 00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:15,880 And how would you do that? 568 00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:20,800 Well, if you had planets, 569 00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:22,760 lots of planets in the habitable zone, 570 00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:24,000 Earth-sized planets, 571 00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:26,520 you could have life throughout the galaxy. 572 00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:30,880 When I speak of the habitable zone, 573 00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:32,480 what we're talking about is, 574 00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:34,840 if we take a planet, we move it close to the star, 575 00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:36,000 it's too hot. 576 00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:38,600 If you had water on a planet, it would boil off. 577 00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:41,440 It would evaporate. It would be lost to space. It's too hot. 578 00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:44,720 If you go very far from the star, it's too cold. 579 00:54:44,720 --> 00:54:47,160 Any water there is frozen forever. 580 00:54:47,160 --> 00:54:51,320 So the intermediate region, the Goldilocks zone, 581 00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:53,480 we could have liquid water on the surface, 582 00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:57,400 where we think it would be conducive to the evolution of life. 583 00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:00,800 That's what we call the habitable zone. 584 00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:03,000 Kepler was designed to find out - 585 00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:06,800 are Earth-like planets frequent in our galaxy? 586 00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:08,600 Are they in the habitable zone? 587 00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:17,120 T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, 588 00:55:17,120 --> 00:55:22,000 six, five, four, three, two. 589 00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:24,000 Engine start. One, zero. 590 00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:27,440 And liftoff of the Delta II rocket with Kepler 591 00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:31,560 on a search for planets in some way like our own. 592 00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:33,000 Chamber pressures are building. 593 00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:35,680 Ground-lit solid motors are building and chamber pressure. 594 00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:40,000 Can you see separation? 595 00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:42,480 And we have ignition of the air-lit solid motors. 596 00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:52,000 When a telescope was launched, 597 00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:53,800 the thing was tumbling in space, 598 00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:56,000 pointing the antenna this way and that way. 599 00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:57,720 It couldn't operate properly. 600 00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:02,200 It's a real cliff-hanger. 601 00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:14,520 We were really worried that mission might not work 602 00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:16,640 if we couldn't get it to stop spinning. 603 00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,480 When they found the electronic system was in difficulty, 604 00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:28,320 it shifted to a different system. 605 00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:32,000 It was able to stop the spinning and point the antenna 606 00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:33,320 toward the Earth. 607 00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:43,520 Throw off the cover and what you see is this magnificent image. 608 00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:57,000 82 detectors showing hundreds of thousands of glowing stars. 609 00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:58,800 Every detector working. 610 00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:11,720 It meant that the mission was certain to succeed. 611 00:57:11,720 --> 00:57:14,280 We would find thousands of planets. 612 00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:17,520 It was a beautiful, magnificent image. 613 00:57:17,520 --> 00:57:19,040 I'll never forget it. 614 00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:45,680 So, as the Kepler Space Telescope continuously stares at the stars, 615 00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:49,360 you can see planets moving around these stars. 616 00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:56,320 You can see that the light dips slightly in its brightness, 617 00:57:56,320 --> 00:57:58,720 and we can measure that dip. 618 00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:02,520 So we can tell, potentially, by how big the dip is, 619 00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:04,120 what size the planet is. 620 00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:07,200 We can also look at the orbit of the planet, 621 00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:09,000 how long it takes to go around its star, 622 00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:11,280 and maybe how close it is to its star. 623 00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:14,000 When we combine those with the temperature of the star, 624 00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:16,000 we can start to estimate the temperature 625 00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:17,240 of the planet itself. 626 00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:19,840 And once we know that, we can actually estimate 627 00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:22,560 its habitability potential and whether it's somewhere 628 00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:25,320 that could be capable of supporting life as we know it. 629 00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:36,920 I think the Kepler telescope has been tremendously exciting 630 00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:42,200 because of the number and variety of exoplanetary systems 631 00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:44,320 that have been discovered. 632 00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:48,600 With Kepler, it's - at least in my opinion - 633 00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:52,480 showing that we probably have a potential 634 00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:54,880 for a lot of habitable worlds. 635 00:58:57,240 --> 00:59:01,040 The probability that we have life in the universe goes up. 636 00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:11,000 We know for a fact - 637 00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:14,360 not speculation, for a fact - 638 00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:19,240 our galaxy is full of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone. 639 00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:22,880 It might very well be full of life. 640 00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:39,080 NEWSREADER: Despite assurances from Nasa 641 00:59:39,080 --> 00:59:42,360 that there are no other artificial objects in the solar system, 642 00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:45,840 the last 24 hours have seen air forces around the world 643 00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:48,040 increase their state of readiness. 644 00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:57,000 Meanwhile, troops have been mobilised in parts 645 00:59:57,000 --> 01:00:01,360 of mainland Europe to help alleviate some of the mounting food shortages 646 01:00:01,360 --> 01:00:03,040 and supply chain issues. 647 01:00:16,840 --> 01:00:20,600 Good morning, and thank you for inviting us to present today. 648 01:00:20,600 --> 01:00:24,280 I'd like to start by reiterating what many of you have probably 649 01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:26,040 already heard from your contacts. 650 01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:32,000 We do not believe there are any more of these objects approaching us, 651 01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:35,160 at least not within the timeframe of weeks and months. 652 01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:40,640 So our main focus in the last few days 653 01:00:40,640 --> 01:00:43,720 has been on narrowing down a point of origin. 654 01:00:43,720 --> 01:00:46,560 We'd like to present today what we consider to be 655 01:00:46,560 --> 01:00:48,680 the best candidate star systems. 656 01:00:55,080 --> 01:00:59,200 Using speed and trajectory data, we were able to narrow down 657 01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:04,040 over 5,400 potential candidates. 658 01:01:07,640 --> 01:01:11,200 Then we discarded any systems without an abundance 659 01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:13,560 of the elements seen in the Artefact. 660 01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:17,760 Leaving us with these eight. 661 01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:24,880 Of these, only one we believe might be old enough 662 01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,400 to be a potential home to complex life. 663 01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:36,320 21 Sagittarii. 664 01:01:38,880 --> 01:01:43,040 A star system we believe is nearly eight billion years old. 665 01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:03,200 Well, it's quite probable 666 01:02:03,200 --> 01:02:06,000 that something that we would find will be older. 667 01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:10,720 You have to realise that, in our region of the galaxy, 668 01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:14,320 the sun is about a billion years younger 669 01:02:14,320 --> 01:02:16,000 than the surrounding stars. 670 01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:20,240 So our neighbours are quite a bit older than we are. 671 01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:32,360 Well, I think older stars would be interesting 672 01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:34,840 just because they've been around for a longer time. 673 01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:39,560 So there's been a longer sort of period for life to evolve. 674 01:02:39,560 --> 01:02:43,320 And if it takes a long time for intelligent life to evolve... 675 01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:46,000 We know it was something like four billion years 676 01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:47,360 here on our planet. 677 01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:49,480 You know, if you give it another four billion years, 678 01:02:49,480 --> 01:02:52,560 so you have a star that's maybe eight billion years old, 679 01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:56,120 then it's had twice the amount of time to, you know, 680 01:02:56,120 --> 01:02:58,760 potentially produce an intelligent civilisation. 681 01:02:58,760 --> 01:03:01,600 So old stars, I think, are interesting. 682 01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:09,400 When we think about looking for alien technology 683 01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:12,400 or alien life elsewhere in the galaxy, 684 01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:15,320 we're almost certainly going to find things that have been around 685 01:03:15,320 --> 01:03:16,680 a really long time. 686 01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:20,120 Really long time means millions to hundreds of millions 687 01:03:20,120 --> 01:03:21,760 to billions of years old. 688 01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:31,600 If we found technology that was a billion years old, 689 01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:35,440 that means, when Earth was covered with microbes and slime, 690 01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:38,640 there's technology operating on some other planet. 691 01:03:40,480 --> 01:03:43,040 I mean, that to me is quite profound. 692 01:04:01,400 --> 01:04:03,040 Science Q. 693 01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:42,880 This is Anita Kay. 694 01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:46,000 Welcome back to The Insight. 695 01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:50,520 So what exactly is this thing and what do we do now? 696 01:06:50,520 --> 01:06:55,680 Well, based on its erratic and uncontrolled spin, 697 01:06:55,680 --> 01:06:59,520 many now suspect we've likely discovered some kind 698 01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:01,120 of technological debris. 699 01:07:03,880 --> 01:07:08,000 A piece of cosmic junk that originated somewhere 700 01:07:08,000 --> 01:07:09,800 in the Sagittarii system. 701 01:07:12,080 --> 01:07:15,120 The question some are now starting to ask is... 702 01:07:17,080 --> 01:07:19,360 ..should we attempt to send a message there? 703 01:07:20,920 --> 01:07:23,000 And if so, 704 01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:24,480 what should we say? 705 01:07:29,880 --> 01:07:35,040 Good evening, and welcome to the 699th meeting 706 01:07:35,040 --> 01:07:36,760 of the Security Council... 707 01:07:38,360 --> 01:07:40,800 An unacceptable risk... 708 01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:44,640 So I think we'd need to gather as much information together 709 01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:46,440 before we transmit. 710 01:07:47,920 --> 01:07:50,240 You know, we've got this thing in our head. 711 01:07:50,240 --> 01:07:52,880 It's sort of limited, you know, 712 01:07:52,880 --> 01:07:56,000 by the physical scale of it. 713 01:07:56,000 --> 01:07:58,840 But, you know, there might be other things out there 714 01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:03,560 that just has a capacity that is completely beyond 715 01:08:03,560 --> 01:08:04,920 what we can even imagine. 716 01:08:06,120 --> 01:08:08,440 And so it's a bit like, you know, ants. 717 01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:10,280 You know, trying to communicate with ants. 718 01:08:10,280 --> 01:08:12,840 The gulf might be enormous between ourselves 719 01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:15,840 and other intelligences. 720 01:08:15,840 --> 01:08:18,400 You'd have to think really hard about that 721 01:08:18,400 --> 01:08:20,120 before you pressed the send button. 722 01:08:29,520 --> 01:08:35,560 It's been decided that space is the common province of all humankind. 723 01:08:36,680 --> 01:08:40,720 And so, when you talk about extraterrestrial life, 724 01:08:40,720 --> 01:08:43,600 then that obviously relates to space, 725 01:08:43,600 --> 01:08:50,560 and therefore no one country in the world should decide on what to do. 726 01:08:52,280 --> 01:08:54,640 Well, it turns out that there actually is a protocol 727 01:08:54,640 --> 01:08:56,200 for what you're supposed to do. 728 01:08:56,200 --> 01:08:58,560 And here it is, actually. 729 01:08:58,560 --> 01:09:01,000 "In the case of a confirmed detection of a signal, 730 01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:04,480 "signatories to this declaration will not respond 731 01:09:04,480 --> 01:09:09,000 "without first seeking guidance and consent of a broadly representative 732 01:09:09,000 --> 01:09:11,880 "international body, such as the United Nations." 733 01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:15,960 Personally, I don't think that there's any reason 734 01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:17,840 to be particularly concerned, 735 01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:20,000 because we're broadcasting all the time anyhow. 736 01:09:20,000 --> 01:09:24,680 All our radio, all our television, all those signals, 737 01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:26,680 they just go right through the ionosphere. 738 01:09:26,680 --> 01:09:28,920 Sure, they're not intended for aliens. 739 01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:33,560 But willy-nilly, they just go off the Earth, out into space. 740 01:09:48,400 --> 01:09:52,000 Freeman Dyson is one of the people that participated 741 01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:54,000 in the past years with us. 742 01:09:54,000 --> 01:09:58,600 And he says, if you ever announce that you've detected a signal, 743 01:09:58,600 --> 01:10:01,560 everyone is going to transmit 744 01:10:01,560 --> 01:10:04,200 and say whatever the hell they please. 745 01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:06,440 Right? And then he chuckles, he says, 746 01:10:06,440 --> 01:10:10,880 "Hmm, and wouldn't that cacophony be about the best 747 01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:14,200 "characterisation of 21st century Earth?" 748 01:10:15,240 --> 01:10:16,480 Yo, what up, guys? 749 01:10:16,480 --> 01:10:18,560 I'm starting the First Contact Challenge. 750 01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:21,240 I want to see what messages you've got for those alien freaks. 751 01:10:21,240 --> 01:10:22,720 So don't forget... 752 01:10:22,720 --> 01:10:24,280 Kind of lonely. 753 01:10:24,280 --> 01:10:29,080 And I would be excited for there to be some other civilisation 754 01:10:29,080 --> 01:10:31,680 out there that we might be able to... 755 01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:34,840 If we didn't contact the aliens then maybe we could learn from them 756 01:10:34,840 --> 01:10:37,520 and we would really lose out on a good situation. 757 01:10:37,520 --> 01:10:40,120 So I think we should just send a message, 758 01:10:40,120 --> 01:10:43,280 tell them that we're friends and we won't hurt them. 759 01:10:43,280 --> 01:10:45,680 OK, so everyone's been asking me recently 760 01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:47,680 what my message would be to aliens. 761 01:10:47,680 --> 01:10:50,000 But some are also scary 762 01:10:50,000 --> 01:10:53,880 as it's civilised enough to send a signal. 763 01:10:58,520 --> 01:11:01,600 You're listening to Talk Box on Joy Radio. 764 01:11:01,600 --> 01:11:05,120 I'm Jen Wright, and we're going to dive straight in with the question 765 01:11:05,120 --> 01:11:09,800 of the day, which is - what message would you send to aliens? 766 01:11:09,800 --> 01:11:12,920 So, my message to aliens would be 767 01:11:12,920 --> 01:11:16,160 those in power don't speak for all of us. 768 01:11:16,160 --> 01:11:18,640 You've heard the sound that they sent us, right? 769 01:11:18,640 --> 01:11:20,720 Just total garbage. Indecipherable... 770 01:11:20,720 --> 01:11:23,400 MUMBLED MESSAGES AND INTERWEAVING VOICES 771 01:11:23,400 --> 01:11:26,400 ..so I would send them equally annoying stuff back. 772 01:11:26,400 --> 01:11:29,800 The hold music that drives me mad. 773 01:12:06,680 --> 01:12:09,200 RADIO STATIC, MUFFLED VOICES 774 01:12:11,520 --> 01:12:15,720 They say radio broadcasts travel out into space forever. 775 01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:20,800 Well, if anyone's out there and listening to this, 776 01:12:20,800 --> 01:12:23,440 hello from the people of Earth. 777 01:12:23,440 --> 01:12:26,400 It's nice to know we've got some company at last. 778 01:12:28,400 --> 01:12:31,440 Anyway, here's one of our best, Claude Debussy. 779 01:12:31,440 --> 01:12:34,000 MUSIC: Clair de lune by Claude Debussy 780 01:12:36,080 --> 01:12:38,240 Let us know what you think. 781 01:12:44,400 --> 01:12:48,640 Nasa is sending commands up to the James Webb Space Telescope 782 01:12:48,640 --> 01:12:54,040 to align it perfectly with the 21 Sagittarii star system. 783 01:12:57,240 --> 01:13:00,400 It's a delicate operation a million miles above us, 784 01:13:00,400 --> 01:13:03,560 directing the telescope's intricate mechanisms 785 01:13:03,560 --> 01:13:06,400 to get it into just the right position. 786 01:13:07,600 --> 01:13:11,360 Now, once it's there, it'll deploy what's called a coronagraph 787 01:13:11,360 --> 01:13:15,680 to gather just a few thousand of the photons being emitted. 788 01:13:15,680 --> 01:13:19,360 It's a little bit like the amount of light you'd get from a candle 789 01:13:19,360 --> 01:13:22,000 four-and-a-half-thousand miles away. 790 01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:26,960 But by analysing that light, 791 01:13:26,960 --> 01:13:30,600 it should be possible to see if there are planets there 792 01:13:30,600 --> 01:13:34,840 and to gather clues about what kind of worlds these might be. 793 01:13:45,120 --> 01:13:48,600 If life is out there, the James Webb Space Telescope 794 01:13:48,600 --> 01:13:52,560 is going to increase our probability of finding it 795 01:13:52,560 --> 01:13:56,920 because it's way more sensitive than previous telescopes. 796 01:13:56,920 --> 01:14:00,040 It's in space, which gives it this clear view, 797 01:14:00,040 --> 01:14:02,480 unobstructed by our atmosphere. 798 01:14:02,480 --> 01:14:05,400 And it has the most modern technologies. 799 01:14:09,280 --> 01:14:10,720 What I'm most interested in 800 01:14:10,720 --> 01:14:14,000 is the fact it's going to study exoplanet atmospheres, 801 01:14:14,000 --> 01:14:16,720 and we're going to be looking for biosignature gases. 802 01:14:18,720 --> 01:14:22,560 So a biosignature is effectively a signature of biology. 803 01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:25,640 We use it as a sign of finding something - 804 01:14:25,640 --> 01:14:27,400 it could be a molecule in a rock 805 01:14:27,400 --> 01:14:29,560 or it could be a gas in an atmosphere, 806 01:14:29,560 --> 01:14:32,360 but something that can only be created by life. 807 01:14:32,360 --> 01:14:35,240 It's only there because there is life existing. 808 01:14:41,280 --> 01:14:44,280 You might look for water vapour, oxygen and methane - 809 01:14:44,280 --> 01:14:46,040 that's a classic biosignature 810 01:14:46,040 --> 01:14:48,760 because on Earth those things derive from life. 811 01:14:48,760 --> 01:14:51,320 So on an exoplanet, it would at least suggest to us 812 01:14:51,320 --> 01:14:52,960 the presence of life. 813 01:14:54,640 --> 01:14:59,600 A technosignature is any remotely detectable evidence of technology. 814 01:15:02,200 --> 01:15:04,840 So CFCs are chlorofluorocarbons. 815 01:15:04,840 --> 01:15:08,640 They have a very long residence time in the atmosphere. 816 01:15:09,880 --> 01:15:13,840 There are no sources of these kinds of chlorofluorocarbons on Earth 817 01:15:13,840 --> 01:15:15,640 other than our own industry. 818 01:15:19,960 --> 01:15:26,440 If you go all the way to thinking about a technological civilisation 819 01:15:26,440 --> 01:15:32,880 that creates smog, CFCs, then with a lot of hours 820 01:15:32,880 --> 01:15:37,320 you might in fact be able to detect that smog 821 01:15:37,320 --> 01:15:41,160 and in fact deduce that there was some sort of a technology 822 01:15:41,160 --> 01:15:42,960 on that planet. 823 01:16:22,040 --> 01:16:25,680 For 12 days, the world has held its breath. 824 01:16:25,680 --> 01:16:29,880 Now, finally, we are beginning to get some answers. 825 01:16:29,880 --> 01:16:34,360 The James Webb data has revealed something extraordinary. 826 01:16:44,480 --> 01:16:49,640 Well, there've been no radio signals from it, no sign of activity, 827 01:16:49,640 --> 01:16:51,320 and no planets. 828 01:16:53,640 --> 01:16:57,920 But there are hints about what could be the remains of a planet. 829 01:17:01,720 --> 01:17:06,040 But we do know that if planets get too close to their stars, 830 01:17:06,040 --> 01:17:09,760 they get torn apart by the gravitational forces. 831 01:17:09,760 --> 01:17:11,800 And if that happens... 832 01:17:11,800 --> 01:17:15,480 SPEECH DISTORTS: They get torn apart by the gravitational forces. 833 01:17:15,480 --> 01:17:18,320 ..what's left is a ring of dust and debris. 834 01:17:18,320 --> 01:17:20,120 It's a very distinctive shape 835 01:17:20,120 --> 01:17:22,520 and it's similar to what we're seeing 836 01:17:22,520 --> 01:17:24,960 in the latest images released today. 837 01:17:26,440 --> 01:17:29,800 And it's similar to what we're seeing in... 838 01:17:29,800 --> 01:17:31,600 SPEECH DISTORTS 839 01:17:40,120 --> 01:17:44,200 We're also getting clues about what this ring is made of, 840 01:17:44,200 --> 01:17:47,120 and it seems to include chemical compounds 841 01:17:47,120 --> 01:17:49,400 that are unlikely to be natural. 842 01:17:49,400 --> 01:17:52,120 Instead, they look somehow manufactured. 843 01:17:55,040 --> 01:17:59,400 So there are suggestions that this ring and the object 844 01:17:59,400 --> 01:18:03,320 that just passed through our solar system may be relics 845 01:18:03,320 --> 01:18:05,640 of a past civilisation. 846 01:18:08,080 --> 01:18:12,160 Which means that this is no longer a search for life. 847 01:18:12,160 --> 01:18:16,440 It's more about delving into the ancient history of deep space. 848 01:18:52,520 --> 01:18:55,160 Searching for life in our solar system is one thing, 849 01:18:55,160 --> 01:18:58,960 but searching for life beyond, it might be closer to archaeology, 850 01:18:58,960 --> 01:19:01,080 because we're receiving signals 851 01:19:01,080 --> 01:19:03,720 from what may now be dead civilisations. 852 01:19:06,040 --> 01:19:09,320 Searching for extraterrestrial relics is like archaeology. 853 01:19:10,320 --> 01:19:11,880 You know, I hope I'm wrong. 854 01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:14,680 I hope that the first sign we have of life 855 01:19:14,680 --> 01:19:17,680 is aliens come knocking on our doorstep and they're friendly. 856 01:19:17,680 --> 01:19:19,800 But I have to be realistic, too. 857 01:19:21,320 --> 01:19:24,720 I don't think that it's going to be, "Hello!" 858 01:19:26,160 --> 01:19:27,480 "Hello." 859 01:19:28,480 --> 01:19:30,000 "How are you?" 860 01:19:30,000 --> 01:19:32,320 You know, a two-way communication. 861 01:19:35,800 --> 01:19:41,120 I think it's much more likely to be a one-way communication 862 01:19:41,120 --> 01:19:45,440 such as we currently have with Shakespeare or the ancient Greeks 863 01:19:45,440 --> 01:19:47,160 and the Romans. 864 01:19:49,640 --> 01:19:52,720 We can't ask questions of them, 865 01:19:52,720 --> 01:19:56,960 but they have provided us a wealth of information 866 01:19:56,960 --> 01:19:59,080 that we can learn from. 867 01:20:11,800 --> 01:20:15,760 I think if we detect evidence of a single artefact 868 01:20:15,760 --> 01:20:17,280 or a single piece of evidence 869 01:20:17,280 --> 01:20:20,480 that there is another advanced civilisation out there, 870 01:20:20,480 --> 01:20:23,080 well, then I think the floodgates are open. 871 01:20:23,080 --> 01:20:24,880 There must be others out there. 872 01:20:24,880 --> 01:20:28,840 Our main problem right now is we are just one data point. 873 01:20:28,840 --> 01:20:31,120 We don't know if we're unique, 874 01:20:31,120 --> 01:20:35,000 but as soon as we have evidence that it happened somewhere else 875 01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:37,960 and that life and intelligent life evolved, 876 01:20:37,960 --> 01:20:40,480 well, then it could happen anywhere. 877 01:21:10,760 --> 01:21:12,000 Hello, good evening. 878 01:21:12,000 --> 01:21:15,560 Well, straight away let's focus on that all-important cloud cover 879 01:21:15,560 --> 01:21:19,000 tending to break up and translating into clear skies, 880 01:21:19,000 --> 01:21:22,600 which of course is great news if there are any amateur astronomers 881 01:21:22,600 --> 01:21:26,960 out there wanting one last glimpse of this cosmic visitor. 882 01:21:29,560 --> 01:21:32,640 As we know, we're expecting a few million people to mark 883 01:21:32,640 --> 01:21:35,480 the occasion throughout the country over the course of this evening, 884 01:21:35,480 --> 01:21:37,400 and that's anywhere from Snowdon Yr Wyddfa 885 01:21:37,400 --> 01:21:39,280 all the way down to Trafalgar Square. 886 01:21:39,280 --> 01:21:41,360 Pretty mass gathering expected there. 887 01:21:41,360 --> 01:21:43,680 But, a word of warning. 888 01:21:43,680 --> 01:21:47,280 Now, can you just see the telltale signs of that cold front up north? 889 01:21:47,280 --> 01:21:50,760 Well, that's expected to sink southwards at quite a pace. 890 01:21:50,760 --> 01:21:53,080 So if you are attending an outdoor light vigil, 891 01:21:53,080 --> 01:21:55,000 if you're going out tonight, 892 01:21:55,000 --> 01:21:57,880 bear this in mind and please wrap up warmly. 893 01:22:29,120 --> 01:22:32,640 Our best guess is that we've encountered an object 894 01:22:32,640 --> 01:22:34,720 created by an intelligence 895 01:22:34,720 --> 01:22:37,880 that existed over a billion years ago. 896 01:22:40,160 --> 01:22:42,200 But our time with it is fleeting. 897 01:22:45,520 --> 01:22:48,680 Today, the artefact moves out of sight 898 01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:51,920 as it makes its way beyond the Solar System. 899 01:22:59,360 --> 01:23:01,160 It may be over a million years 900 01:23:01,160 --> 01:23:04,400 before it encounters another star or planet. 901 01:23:15,320 --> 01:23:19,240 What we now know beyond doubt 902 01:23:19,240 --> 01:23:24,400 is that the miracle of complex life is not unique to the Earth. 903 01:23:30,360 --> 01:23:34,240 But how long intelligent civilisations last, 904 01:23:34,240 --> 01:23:37,800 and if they ever overlap, remains unknown. 905 01:23:43,000 --> 01:23:48,760 As of right now, there's still every chance we're alone in the universe. 906 01:23:55,640 --> 01:23:59,160 And that means we have a responsibility 907 01:23:59,160 --> 01:24:01,200 to protect what's happened here. 908 01:24:08,160 --> 01:24:11,480 The search for life isn't over. 909 01:24:14,640 --> 01:24:16,640 It's really just beginning. 910 01:24:22,200 --> 01:24:27,120 Exploring space to determine the extent of life in our galaxy 911 01:24:27,120 --> 01:24:30,880 reminds me very much of what the people in the Middle Ages did. 912 01:24:32,160 --> 01:24:36,240 They believed that one of the great things they could do 913 01:24:36,240 --> 01:24:39,320 was build these beautiful cathedrals to worship God. 914 01:24:40,840 --> 01:24:43,720 They knew when they started building these cathedrals 915 01:24:43,720 --> 01:24:47,160 they would not live long enough to see these cathedrals 916 01:24:47,160 --> 01:24:50,480 in their full glory, to go inside and worship God. 917 01:24:50,480 --> 01:24:53,400 But their children or grandchildren would do that. 918 01:24:53,400 --> 01:24:56,360 They had the faith to start, to do the work. 919 01:24:59,160 --> 01:25:02,200 In space exploration, we are doing those first steps. 920 01:25:02,200 --> 01:25:04,280 We are building that foundation. 921 01:25:06,840 --> 01:25:09,880 And it's not something that's done in one lifetime. 922 01:25:11,560 --> 01:25:14,520 It's something that humankind does 923 01:25:14,520 --> 01:25:18,640 because it has faith that we need and want to explore the universe... 924 01:25:20,360 --> 01:25:23,080 ..and find life in our galaxy.