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Origins: Where are the Aliens?
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Program Overview
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Origins: Earth is Born Program Overview
Origins: How Life Began Program Overview
Origins: Back to the Beginning Program Overview
NOVA explores the search for extraterrestrial life.
The program:
reviews how aliens are depicted in visual media. -
describes the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), a
program that scans star systems for radio transmissions from
advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.
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introduces the Drake equation, created by SETI founder Frank
Drake, which attempts to quantify the probability of intelligent
life in the Milky Way galaxy.
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shows how scientists detect faraway planets by looking for the
characteristic wobble exhibited by a star when a Jupiter-sized
planet is in orbit around it.
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reviews the first of more than 100 discoveries of stars with
planetary wobbles.
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notes the importance of finding Jupiter-sized planets that could
attract passing asteroids and slingshot them out of the solar
system, thereby protecting smaller nearby planets from
bombardment and allowing them a higher probability of forming
life.
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explains why carbon and liquid water may be conducive to life.
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speculates that ancient oceans on the surface of Mars indicate
the planet may have once had liquid water.
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investigates the intelligence of cephalopods and posits that
intelligence may be a natural outcome in the evolution of
complicated life forms.
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concludes with the question of whether humans would be able to
communicate with intelligent life—that was also
technologically advanced enough to communicate—if it did
exist.
Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after the program
is taped off the air.
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