Us House Of Representatives 2014 Hearing Astrobiology Search For Life In The Universe

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 5121800; DC area (202) 5121800 Fax: (202) 5122104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 204020001 ASTROBIOLOGY AND THE SEARCH FOR LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION Serial No. 11376 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair DANA ROHRABACHER, California RALPH M. HALL, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas MICHAEL T. M CCAUL, Texas PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi MO BROOKS, Alabama RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas BILL POSEY, Florida CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma RANDY WEBER, Texas CHRIS COLLINS, New York BILL JOHNSON, Ohio EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon ERIC SWALWELL, California DAN MAFFEI, New York ALAN GRAYSON, Florida JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts SCOTT PETERS, California DEREK KILMER, Washington AMI BERA, California ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut MARC VEASEY, Texas JULIA BROWNLEY, California MARK TAKANO, California ROBIN KELLY, Illinois C O N T E N T S Opening Statements Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .....................5 Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Com- mittee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....7 Witnesses: Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute Mr. Dan Werthimer, Director of the SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute ...............................74 Mr. Dan Werthimer, Director of the SETI Research Center at the University ASTROBIOLOGY AND THE SEARCH FOR LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 2014 HOUSE OFREPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ONSCIENCE, SPACE, ANDTECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C. The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith [Chairman of the Committee] presiding. Chairman SMITH. The Committee on Science, Space, and Tech- nology will come to order. And welcome to todays hearing Astrobiology and the Search for Life in the Universe. A couple of preliminary announcements. One is that I want to thank CSPAN for covering this hearing today. That shows the importance of the hearing in a lot of respects. And I want to thank all the students from Herndon High School here as well. I understand you had a choice of hearings to attend, in fact you could attend almost any hearing you wanted to, and you chose this one because you thought it was the most interesting. And actually that is one of the purposes of todays hearing, and that is to inspire students today to be the scientists of tomorrow. And who knows? We may have some of those scientists in the audi- ence right now who will be inspired by what they hear to study astrobiology or perhaps some of the other sciences as well. So we appreciate your attendance. I will recognize myself for an opening statement and then the Ranking Member as well. As we discover more planets around the stars in our own galaxy, it is natural to wonder if we may finally be on the brink of answer- ing the question, Are we alone in the universe? Finding other sentient life in the universe would be the most sig- nificant discovery in human history. Scientists estimate that there are 80 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. To date, more than 1,700 nearby planets have been found by the Kepler Space Tele- Last month, astronomers discovered the first Earth-like planet orbiting its star at a distance where liquid water could be present, a condition thought essential to life. Called Kepler-186f, it is only ten percent larger than the Earth and about 490 light years away. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which will launch in 2017, and the James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018, will help scientists discover more planets with potential biosigna- The United States has pioneered the field of astrobiology and continues to lead the world in this type of research. A sample of professional papers published in Science magazine between 1995 and 2013 illustrates the significant growth and growing popularity of the field of astrobiology. Between 1995 and 2012, the number of papers published on astrobiology increased 10 times and the num- ber of scientific reports that cited astrobiology increased 25 times. Astrobiology is a serious subject studied by serious scientists around the world. Reflecting this interest, next September the Li- brary of Congress and NASA will hold a 2-day astrobiology sympo- sium on what the societal impacts could be of finding microbial, complex, or intelligent life in the universe. Whether life exists on other planets in the universe continues to be a matter of debate among scientists. Around the world a number of astronomers listen to naturally occurring radio frequencies. They try to filter out the cosmic noise and interference of human-made satellites and spacecraft to find anomalies that could be signals from civilizations elsewhere in the universe. The Allen Telescope Array at the SETI Institute, financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and the Arecibo telescope in Puer- to Rico are two well-known locations for conducting radio astron- omy searches for life in the universe. Recently, radio astronomers have detected pulsed signals that last only a few milliseconds. These fast radio bursts as they are called have caused scientists to speculate as to their cause. Some scientists hypothesize they could be from stars colliding or from an extraterrestrial intelligent source. Other astronomers search for laser light pulses, instead of radio waves. Researchers at the SETI Optical Telescope, run by the Har- vard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Columbus Optical SETI Observatory and the University of California at Berkeley, among others, use optical telescopes to try to detect nanosecond pulses or flashes of light distinct from pulsars or other naturally occurring phenomena. I hope todays hearing will enable us to learn more about how research in astrobiology continues to expand this fascinating fron- tier. The unknown and unexplored areas of space spark human cu- riosity. Americans and others around the world look up at the stars and wonder if we are alone or is there life on other planets. [The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:] PREPAREDSTATEMENT OFCHAIRMANLAMARS. SMITH As we discover more planets around the stars in our own galaxy, it is natural to wonder if we may finally be on the brink of answering the centuries old question, Are we alone in the universe? Finding other sentient life in the universe would be the most significant discovery in human history. Scientists estimate that there are 800 billion stars in the Milky Way. To date, more than 1,700 nearby planets have been found by the Kepler Space Telescope. Last month, astronomers discovered the first Earth-like planet orbiting its star at a distance where liquid water could be present, a condition thought essential to life. Called Kepler 186f, it is only 10% larger than Earth and is 490 light years The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which will launch in 2017, and the James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018, will help scientists discover more planets with potential biosignatures. The United States has pioneered the field of astrobiology and continues to lead the world in this type of research. A sample of professional papers published in Science magazine between 1995 and 2013 illustrates the significant growth and growing popularity of the field of astrobiology. Between 1995 and 2012, the number of papers published on astrobiology increased ten times and the number of scientific reports that cited astrobiology increased 25 times. Astrobiology is a serious subject studied by serious scientists around the world. Reflecting this interest, next September the Library of Congress and NASA will hold a two day astrobiology symposium on what the societal impacts could be of finding microbial, complex or intelligent life in the universe. Whether life exists on other planets in the universe continues to be a matter of debate among scientists. Around the world a number of astronomers listen to natu- rally occurring radio frequencies. They try to filter out the cosmic noise and inter- ference of human-made satellites and spacecraft to find anomalies that could be sig- nals from civilizations elsewhere in the universe. The Allen Telescope Array at the SETI Institute, financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico are two well-known locations for conducting radio astronomy searches for life in the universe. Recently radio astronomers have detected pulsed signals that last only a few mil- liseconds. These Fast Radio Bursts have caused scientists to speculate as to their cause. Some scientists hypothesize they could be from stars colliding or from an ex- traterrestrial intelligent source. Other astronomers search for laser light pulses, in- stead of radio waves. Researchers at the SETI Optical Telescope, run by the Har- vard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Columbus Optical SETI Observatory and the University of California at Berkeley, among others, use optical telescopes to try to detect nanosecond pulses or flashes of light distinct from pulsars or other naturally occurring phenomena. I hope todays hearing will enable us to learn more about how research in astrobiology continues to expand this fascinating frontier. The unknown and unex- plored areas of space spark human curiosity. Americans and others around the world look up at the stars and wonder if we are alone or is there life on other plan- Chairman SMITH. That concludes my opening statement, and the Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for hers. Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning. In the interest of saving time I will forgo making an opening statement and instead I will simply want to welcome Dr. Shostak and Dr. Werthimer to this mornings hearing on the search for life, including intelligent life, in outer space. You both are dis- tinguished researchers and I know that you will have thoughtful testimony to present, and this afternoon will determine whether we will have researchers to continue this. So thank you and I yield back. Chairman S MITH. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. And I would like to introduce our witnesses at this point. Our first witness, Dr. Seth Shostak, is a Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. He has held this position since 2001. Dr. Shostak has spent much of his career con- ducting radio astronomy research on galaxies. Dr. Shostak has written more than 400 published magazine and web articles on various topics in astronomy, technology, film, and television. He has also edited and contributed to nearly a dozen scientific and popular astronomy books. He has authored four books, including Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life and Confessions of an Alien Hunter: a Scientists Search for Extra- terrestrial Intelligence. You can hear him each week as host of a one-hour-long radio program on astrobiology entitled Big Picture Science. Dr. Shostak received his bachelors in physics from Princeton and his Ph.D. in astrophysics from the California Institute of Tech- Our second witness, Dr. Dan Werthimer, has worked at the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley since 1983. He is cur- rently the Director of several of the labs centers, including the SETI Research Center and the Center for Astronomy Signal Proc- essing and Electronics Research. Additionally, Mr. Werthimer serves as Chief Scientist for the labs SETI@home program and Associate Director of their Berkeley Wireless Research Center. Mr. Werthimer co-authored SETI 2020 and was the editor of Bioastronomy: Molecules, Microbes, and Ex- traterrestrial Life and Astronomical and Biochemical Origins and the Search for Life in the Universe. His research has been featured in many broadcast news stories such as on ABC and CBS and many major newspapers and maga- zines. His work also has reached a younger audience through Scho- lastic Weekly, a science magazine for kids. Mr. Werthimer received his bachelors and masters degrees in physics and astronomy from San Francisco State University. I will recognize to start us off today Dr. Shostak and then we will go to Mr. Werthimer. TESTIMONY OF DR. SETH SHOSTAK, SENIOR ASTRONOMER AT THE SETI INSTITUTE Dr. SHOSTAK. Thank you, Congressman Smith, for the oppor- tunity to be here. I am just going to give you a few big-picture thoughts on the search for life and in particular intelligent life, the kind of life that could uphold its side of the conversation as opposed to the micro- bial sort of life. This is obviously a subject of great interest to many Let me just back up and say that when you read in the paper about the discovery of a new planet or something, water on Mars, you are looking at one of three horses in a race to be the first to find some extraterrestrial biology. The first horse is simply to find it nearby, and that is where the big money is. Rovers on Mars, the moons of the outer solar system. There are at least a half a dozen other worlds that might have life in our solar system. The chances of finding it I think are good, and if that happens, it will happen in the next 20 years, depending on the financing. The second horse in that race is to build very large instruments that can sniff, if you will, the atmospheres of planets around other stars and maybe find oxygen in the atmosphere or methane, which, as you know, is produced by cows and pigs and things like that, but biology in any case. Andso you could find pigs in space, I sup- pose. That is again a project depending on funding that could yield results in the next two decades. The third horse in that race is SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and that idea, if you have seen the movie Contact you know what the idea is, is to eavesdrop on signals that are either deliberately or accidentally leaked off somebody elses world. That makes sense because in fact even we, only 100 years after Tesla and Marconi and the invention of practical radio, we already have the technology that would allow us to send bits of information across light years of distance to putative extraterrestrials. Let me just tell you why I think they are out there, by the way. Thatyou know, it is unproven whether there is any life beyond Earth. That is the situation today. You have heard me say twice now that I think the situation is going to change within everyones lifetime in this room. Okay. And the reason is we arethe universe is a fecund place for life. Congressman Smith has mentioned the number of stars in our galaxy. With respect, that number is actu- ally rather larger. It is something like 200 to 400 billion stars, but we now know that at least 70 percent of them have planets. Recent results from NASAs Kepler telescope, an astoundingly successful instrument, suggest that one in five stars may have planets that are cousins of the Earth. What that means is that in our own gal- axy there are tens of billions of other planets that are the kind you might want to build condos on and live. Okay. Tens of billions. And if that isnt adequate for your requirements, let me point out there are 150 billion other galaxies we can see with our telescopes, each with a similar complement of Earthlike worlds. What that means is that the numbers are so astounding that if this is the only planet on which not only life but intelligent life has arisen, then we are extraordinarily exceptional. It is like buying trillions of lottery tickets a