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Why SETI might be our most humbling science | Jill Tarter: Full Interview
Posted
February 13, 2026
Views
34,314
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758
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February 13, 2026
34,314
758
45
2.34%
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Jill Tarter has spent a lifetime working on a question that resists answers: not whether we believe there is life beyond Earth, but the quest for undeniable proof.
Tarter explains why SETI is really about technology, patience, and learning how to tell alien signals from our own.
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About Jill Tarter:
Jill Tarter is Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. She served as Project Scientist for NASA’s SETI program, the High Resolution Microwave Survey, and has conducted numerous observational programs at radio observatories worldwide. Since the termination of funding for NASA’s SETI program in 1993, she has served in a leadership role to secure private funding to continue the exploratory science. Her astronomical work was illustrated in Carl Sagan's 1985 novel "Contact." The character largely based on Tarter, "Ellie Arroway," was portrayed by Jodie Foster in the 1997 film version of "Contact."
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