0:00 I and a few of my colleagues have uh
0:02 spent a fair amount of time trying to
0:03 find some evidence for intelligent life
0:05 on Earth by and large we've been
0:07 unsuccessful would you welcome Carl s
0:09 Carl s is one of three eminent
0:11 astronomers of our time guide through
0:12 the icy Rings strange moons and storm
0:15 whipped Planet astronomer Carl San Carl
0:17 tell us about the latest will you the uh
0:20 latest is that uh we have just made the
0:23 closest approach
0:24 [Music]
0:27 to well I was uh born born in Brooklyn
0:30 New York I was small child I don't know
0:34 five or so and even with an early
0:37 bedtime in Winter you could occasionally
0:39 see the stars and uh they seemed to me
0:43 interesting strange remote I asked
0:45 people uh what the stars were and they
0:49 said uh they lights in the Sky Kid well
0:54 I could tell there were lights in the
0:55 sky but it seemed to me there had to be
0:57 some some deeper explanation
1:00 it seemed to me unlikely that they were
1:02 just Little Lights lamps hanging from
1:06 from the sky who put them there what
1:08 what for and so when I got my first
1:10 library card
1:11 I fairly breathlessly asked the
1:14 librarian for a book on Stars turned the
1:18 pages of this you know easy children's
1:20 book and uh finally came to what uh what
1:23 I had been looking for an astonishing
1:25 statement that the stars were just like
1:28 the sun except AC immensely far away
1:32 that the sun was a star but just very
1:34 close I couldn't tell how close the sun
1:38 was or how far you'd have to move it to
1:40 make it as dim as a star but I could
1:41 tell that was a very big distance and
1:44 suddenly the Scale of the Universe
1:46 opened up for me a very powerful
1:49 emotional experience which uh I'm still
1:52 engaged
1:54 in the whole idea of uh of what happens
1:57 when you read a book I find absolutely
1:59 St here here's some product of a tree
2:02 with little black squiggles on it right
2:04 you open it up and inside your head is
2:07 the voice of someone speaking who may
2:10 have been dead 3,000 years and yet there
2:12 he is talking directly to you what a
2:14 magical thing that is and now years
2:17 after car San's passing we're still
2:19 listening to him with words profound and
2:22 Visions vast he unveiled the mysteries
2:25 of our Cosmic past with passion he
2:27 embraced the cosmic dance waving
2:30 knowledge and awe at every chance with
2:33 science as his Compass he sought to
2:35 unveil the secrets of the universe where
2:38 truth
2:42 prevails we were hunters and
2:46 foragers we wandered in small itinerant
2:51 extended families chipping and flaking
2:54 stone tools back before they had a
2:57 little trickle of metal so over the
2:59 dying Embers of the campfire people
3:02 watched the stars and they did it I
3:05 imagine for many reasons one it is just
3:10 dazzling and we today living in polluted
3:13 under polluted skies and in cities with
3:16 light pollution have mainly forgotten
3:19 how gorgeous the night sky can be it is
3:23 not only an aesthetic experience but it
3:26 elicits unbidden feelings of reverence
3:29 and
3:30 awe I want to turn to the important and
3:36 uh ruthful fact that every human culture
3:39 has considered itself at the center of
3:40 the universe this is the geocentric
3:43 conceit not only did every culture draw
3:46 this conclusion but I think it's clear
3:49 that our ancestors took enormous
3:51 personal satisfaction in it the
3:55 centrality of our position was stunning
3:59 we went on every human culture every
4:01 great philosopher every scientist every
4:03 religious leader thinking we were at the
4:05 center of the universe we put it in
4:08 various guises in our scriptures
4:10 declared the scriptures to be infallible
4:13 thereby making it not just a secular but
4:17 a religious crime to even think about
4:19 the issue I I imagine an
4:22 extraterrestrial visitation coming upon
4:25 the Earth and then listening in on what
4:28 people all over the planet are saying
4:30 and they're saying we're at the center
4:32 we're important we're special everything
4:34 goes around
4:35 us and then I imagine the
4:38 extraterrestrials uh thinking of us as I
4:41 don't know the planet of the idiots but
4:45 that's too
4:46 harsh because there's a resonance here
4:50 between the most obvious interpretation
4:53 of absolutely straightforward
4:55 observational facts that every person
4:58 can verify for him or
5:00 herself a resonance between that and our
5:04 emotional hopes and
5:07 needs the idea that the universe is made
5:10 for us not because of any particular
5:13 Merit of ours but just because we're
5:17 here or just because we're human to me
5:21 this seems to resonate with the same
5:23 psychic
5:25 Wellsprings responsible for the view
5:27 that our nation
5:30 is special and the center of the
5:32 universe and the same psychic
5:34 Wellsprings that say that our
5:37 gender or our ethnic group is important
5:42 and Central and all those alternative
5:45 ways of Being Human are somehow less
5:47 Central less important uh less worthy
5:51 than we are we have a weakness and I
5:56 would say those of us worried
6:00 about being
6:01 demoted those of us who wish for us to
6:06 be
6:08 important should do something
6:11 important we should make a an easily
6:16 understandable
6:18 achievable and inspiring goal for the
6:21 human species and then set out and do it
6:25 that would give us the confidence that
6:29 we s Sally lack by being dependent on
6:34 our self-esteem being based on nothing
6:35 we do we want to have self-esteem let's
6:40 make a planet in which nobody is
6:42 starving let's make a planet in which
6:45 men and women have equal access to power
6:48 let us make a planet in which no ethnic
6:51 group has it over another ethnic group
6:54 let's have a planet in which science and
6:55 engineering is used for the benefit of
6:58 everybody on the planet
7:00 and my personal idiosyncrasy let's have
7:04 a world in which we go to other worlds
7:09 human beings are in the exploring
7:10 business that's what we're good at we
7:13 enjoy the sense of exploring something
7:15 new and it has adaptive and survival
7:18 value exploring the solar system gives
7:21 us other worlds to compare our own with
7:23 to better understand and control our own
7:26 planet we are exploring the deepest
7:28 questions that every every human culture
7:30 has asked questions of origins in this
7:33 case where did the Earth come from where
7:35 does the solar system come from where do
7:37 we come from it is an Enterprise which
7:39 is peaceful which is on behalf of the
7:42 entire human community and which will be
7:45 remembered for thousands of years it is
7:48 by far a bigger step than Columbus's
7:51 discovery of America The Exodus of human
7:54 beings and their robot emissaries to
7:57 explore their local swimming hall space
8:00 we have the ability to find out the
8:02 answers send spacecraft to nearby worlds
8:05 use radio telescopes to see if anyone
8:07 sending us a message from a planet of
8:10 another star I'd be ashamed of my
8:12 civilization if we had the tools to find
8:14 out the answers and refuse to look we
8:16 are at a very dangerous moment in human
8:18 history we have weapons of mass
8:20 destruction we are in the process of
8:23 inadvertently altering our climate and
8:26 exhaustion of fossil fuels and mineral
8:28 all kinds of problem s which come with
8:30 technology we are not certain that we
8:32 will be able to survive this period of
8:34 what I like to call technological
8:36 adolescence were we to receive a message
8:39 from somewhere else it would show that
8:41 it's possible to survive this kind of
8:43 period and that's a useful bit of
8:44 information to
8:47 [Music]
8:50 have life on Earth is uh an expression
8:55 of uh the remarkable capability of
8:57 certain kinds of molecules
9:00 the nucleic acids of which DNA is the
9:03 most famous variety um which contains
9:07 all our hereditary information all the
9:09 information which determines let's say
9:11 what our children shall look like and
9:13 many of their hereditary predispositions
9:16 are encoded in a language of about 4
9:21 billion letters if I can use that that
9:25 word um and uh and everyone else's uh
9:29 heredity is determined by a different
9:32 sequence slightly different sequence of
9:34 four billion letters the whole idea of
9:37 understanding ourselves by looking at uh
9:40 at our relatives and I don't just mean
9:42 the primates but all the way back
9:44 insects and before that is exhilarating
9:47 I find it is so exciting so broadening
9:51 so and some people may think this is a
9:54 misuse of the word so humanizing instead
9:57 of of making me grumpy that uh to
10:03 discover that I'm related to the other
10:05 animals I think it raises the
10:08 significance of human beings that we are
10:11 so closely related to so many species
10:14 and such a gorgeous panoply and
10:17 diversity that the Earth's life is
10:20 graced
10:21 with here's this spacecraft that has
10:25 flown by the Jupiter Saturn Uranus and
10:27 Neptune system right is is on its way
10:30 astonishingly to the Stars a Triumph of
10:33 human engineering we turn the cameras
10:36 back and take a photograph of the planet
10:39 from where it came and there is our
10:44 planet a pale
10:47 blue
10:50 dot that's
10:51 us that's home that's where we are on it
10:58 everybody you
11:00 love everybody you know everybody you've
11:03 ever heard of lived out their days there
11:06 the aggregate of all our joy and
11:09 suffering thousands of confident
11:13 ideologies religions economic doctrines
11:17 every Hunter and forager every hero and
11:20 coward every Creator and destroyer of
11:23 civilizations every King and peasant
11:26 every young couple in love every hopeful
11:28 child every mother and father every
11:31 inventor and Explorer every revered
11:34 teacher of morals every corrupt
11:37 politician every superstar every supreme
11:40 leader every saint and sinner in the
11:43 history of our species live there the
11:48 Earth is a very small stage in a great
11:52 Cosmic Arena think of the rivers of
11:56 blood spilled by all those generals and
11:58 emperors
11:59 presidents and prime ministers party
12:02 leaders so that in glory and Triumph
12:06 they could become the momentary masters
12:09 of the corner of a DOT think of the
12:13 Endless cruelties visited by the
12:15 inhabitants of one part of the dot on
12:18 the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants
12:20 of another part of the dot how frequent
12:23 their misunderstandings how eager they
12:25 are to kill one another how fervent
12:28 their hatreds our
12:31 posturings our imagined self-importance
12:36 the delusion that we have some
12:38 privileged position in the universe
12:41 seemed to me
12:43 challenged by this point of pale light
12:47 our planet is a lonely Speck in the
12:50 great enveloping Cosmic dark in our
12:53 obscurity in all this vastness there is
12:57 no hint that there's anyone who will
12:58 come save us from ourselves that will
13:01 happen only if we do it it's been said
13:05 that astronomy is a humbling experience
13:09 and I would add character building to me
13:13 this is one of many demonstrations
13:16 through astronomy of the Folly of human
13:18 conceits to me this picture underscores
13:22 our responsibility to deal more kindly
13:26 with one another and to preserve and
13:29 cherish the pale blue
13:31 dot the only
13:33 home we've ever known thank
13:36 you what if any one thing in particular
13:39 would you have yourself be remembered
13:43 by I don't know I I have to leave the
13:46 decision about how I'm going to be
13:48 remembered to uh to others but thanks
13:51 very much for the for the
13:54 quest his legacy endures like a comet's
13:58 Trail in inspiring generations to ponder
14:01 dream and Prevail car seen a luminary of
14:05 cosmic Delight his work ignites
14:08 curiosity forever a
14:12 light what is your memory of Carl San
14:15 please don't hesitate to share your
14:17 memory of Carl Sean and what his
14:19 inspiring work have meant for you in the
14:22 comment section below thank you
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