Gee, that title kind of says it all, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, I am happy to announce that my latest chat with Marco Ciapelli and Sean Martin at ITSP Magazine was not only a good time, talking about exoplanet studies and science. It was also a chance to introduce Stories from Space, my new podcast at ITSP Magazine, which is all about the history, future, and people that make human spaceflight a reality.

The episode is part of Ciapelli and Martin’s series, Audio Signals, where we talked about the various methods astronomers use to detect, confirm, and study planets beyond our Solar System. We also got into how all of that is about to change thanks to next-generation telescopes like the James Webb, which will be releasing its first images on July 12th (one of which is of an exoplanet’s atmosphere)!

Check out the interview here and stay tuned for more!

Is it possible that humanity hasn’t heard from advanced extraterrestrials because they have us trapped in some grand simulation? Or perhaps they have enclosed our region of space and are simulating an empty Universe. This is known as the Planetarium Hypothesis, originally proposed by scientist and science fiction author Stephen Baxter in 2001. While this possibility is likely unprovable, it has an internal logic that is hard to ignore. If you were a super-advanced extraterrestrial intelligence, isn’t this what you’d do?

Is it possible that we haven’t heard from any advanced alien civilizations because they’ve “transcended” – i.e., achieved a state of existence so advanced that we can no longer perceive them? This is the essence of the Transcenion Hypothesis, first proposed by John Smart in a 2002 paper, titled “Answering the Fermi Paradox: Exploring the Mechanisms of Universal Transcension.”

At last, I’ve taken the plunge and decided to continue my vlog series as a podcast series! Picking up from where I left off, Episode 1 addresses one of the most famous proposed resolutions to the Fermi Paradox – The Great Filter Hypothesis! First proposed in 1996 by Robert Hanson (Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University), the theory is best described as follows:

“The Great Filter can be thought of as a probability barrier. It consists of [one or] more highly improbable evolutionary transitions or steps whose occurrence is required in order for an Earth-like planet to produce an intelligent civilization of a type that would be visible to us with our current observation technology.”

The possibility that all advanced life faces this filter has significant implications for human life today, none of which are particularly pleasant! Depending on where the filter resides along the evolutionary pathway, we may either be past it (indicating that we are a fluke), or we could be headed straight for it (indicating that we are on borrowed time).

All this and more in Episode 1! Here’s the audio track:

The same episode, with video: