Jill Tarter quotes

Jill Tarter is an American astronomer and astrophysicist, renowned for her pioneering work in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Her leadership and advocacy have shaped the direction of SETI research worldwide. She continues to inspire new generations of scientists interested in the question of life beyond Earth. Here are 9 of her quotes:

We, all of us, are what happens when a primordial mixture of hydrogen and helium evolves for so long that it begins to ask where it came from.

Jill Tarter

We don't know how to identify intelligence over interstellar distances, so what we do instead is use technology for a proxy.

Jill Tarter

We misuse language and talk about the 'ascent' of man. We understand the scientific basis for the interrelatedness of life, but our ego hasn't caught up yet.

Jill Tarter

We are made out of stardust. The iron in the hemoglobin molecules in the blood in your right hand came from a star that blew up 8 billion years ago. The iron in your left hand came from another star.

Jill Tarter

Life has evolved to thrive in environments that are extreme only by our limited human standards: in the boiling battery acid of Yellowstone hot springs, in the cracks of permanent ice sheets, in the cooling waters of nuclear reactors, miles beneath the Earth's crust, in pure salt crystals, and inside the rocks of the dry valleys of Antarctica.

Jill Tarter

Earlier generations of stars in the galaxy could well have had planets. But really, there was only hydrogen and helium to work with, so they'd all be gas giants and not small, rocky planets.

Jill Tarter

I can actually build my equipment at the back end of the telescope such that it takes the data from all of the separate antennas and adds the signal together with different time delays and different phase shifts - it's as if I were picking out up to eight individual pixels in this large field of view.

Jill Tarter

The existence of life beyond Earth is an ancient human concern. Over the years, however, attempts to understand humanity's place in the cosmos through science often got hijacked by wishful thinking or fabricated tales.

Jill Tarter