Cosmic Chronicles: From Stars to SETI

Without the birth and dramatic death of stars billions of years ago, life as we know it would not exist. In this talk, I will give a tour of the first 10% of the life of the Universe, the time when the first stars started shining. We will travel together through one of the galaxies, watching the rapid life cycles of humungous stars and seeing the fundamental changes these stars had on the chemistry of the Universe. I will end by contemplating whether these galaxies could have harboured life.

Neutral hydrogen atoms, the most basic of elements, form the foundation of our Universe - once nearly entirely composed of hydrogen gas. Even today, it is omnipresent in all structures. While imaging light from stars is relatively simple with cameras, we must thank modern radio technology for the ability to observe neutral hydrogen. Once captured, neutral hydrogen can tell us the story of our universe, from star formation dynamics within and between galaxies to the discovery of the first stars.

Are we alone? This enduring query captivates humanity. To tackle this question, scientists have taken numerous perspectives be it the search for microbial lifeforms on Mars and its analogue environments on Earth to the hunt for habitable extrasolar planets. One of the approaches involves searching for intelligent life by actively listening for communications using radio telescopes and/or searching for bona fide signals which may appear as anomalies in astronomical data. In this talk, I will describe how a search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is conducted, the challenges encountered, false alarms and future prospects for this field.