Will we ever find alien life?

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

3/6 In this instalment of The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, Hannah and Adam boldly go in search of scientists who are hunting for ET, spurred on by questions sent in by listeners across the globe, from Australia to Columbia. They start by asking how we define life and why we are obsessed with finding it on Mars. Should we be looking further out in the Solar System, and could we find space squid on the icy moon Europa? When it comes to intelligent life we may have to scout even further into the Universe. But what are the chances of finding complex life in the cosmos? And where might it live? Featuring astronomer Seth Shostak from the SETI Institute in California, planetary scientist Monica Grady from the Open University, exoplanet hunter Sara Rugheimer from the University of St Andrews and zoologist Matthew Cobb from Manchester University. Send your Curious Cases for consideration in to [email protected] Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford Producer: Michelle Martin. Main Image: This image obtained from NASA on November 25, 2013 shows several images that were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the spiral NGC 4921 from the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. Copyright: NASA / Hubble / ESA / Handout

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.
0:04.7	Join me as I serve up personal conversations
0:07.1	with my sensational guests.
0:08.9	Do a leap, interviews, Tim Cook.
0:11.2	Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.
0:15.0	It's in the hands of the Creator.
0:16.7	It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.
0:20.6	If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong thing.
0:25.8	Julie, at your service. Listen to all episodes on BBC Sales.
0:31.1	Welcome back to another episode of the Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry on Discovery for the BBC.
0:37.0	Yes, this is the program where you send us in your questions, your queries, your conundrums to curious cases at BBC.co.
0:45.7	UK and we attempt to investigate them using the power of science.
0:49.6	Now we have just a single curious case for you today and it's something that I think all of us at
0:55.0	some point or another have wandered because today we are on the hunt for alien life
1:01.0	forms. Yeah this is an absolute favorite topic of mine because it does combine
1:04.9	well biology with astrophysics with evolution with artificial intelligence. Nice bit of probability in there
1:10.9	as well. Even some maths in there too. And so the question at stake is,
1:15.3	what is alien life? Could it exist? What would it look like? Why haven't they been in contact?
1:20.0	Is it intelligent? Is it like us? And it involves some quite mad theories. I'll be honest with you.
1:26.3	Something to look forward to. Here you go. We've had multiple sightings of this question from earthlings across the world
1:38.0	including James Cocholides from Melbourne and Australia and Henry Kester from Bogota in Colombia.
1:44.0	And this message from Mike Holcomb who made contact from the planets they call
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.