Welcome to the Cosmic Living Room, a place dedicated to conversation. It is a space for us to recognise similarities and resolve differences.  

Here on Earth, we often assume that we have never met an extra-terrestrial because we are alone. But maybe contact isn’t their priority, or we haven’t been welcoming enough. 

The Cosmic Living Room provides a welcoming space for all, and a place to ponder some universal questions while you wait. The gallery includes the sound work, Chamber Music for Aliens, composed by Jonathon Keats, and a cosmic carpet, designed by Jonathon and Dr Alice Gorman, Flinders University’s resident Space Archaeologist.

Humans and the Search for Extra-Terrestrials

What would we say to aliens?  

Humans have been sending messages to space since the 1960s, including the famous golden record aboard the Voyager probes, the first human made objects to reach interstellar space. We’ve also been listening, with the Search For Extra-Terrestrials (SETI) project scanning the sky for radio signals for over half a century.  

Where would we look? 

As of November 2018, we’ve discovered nearly 4,000 exoplanets, planets in orbit around stars outside our own solar system.  Scientists think they may have even detected the first exomoon, orbiting planet Kepler 1625b.  There are probably hundreds of billions of exoplanets within our own galaxy, the Milky Way.   

What would we find?  

Astrobiologists look to distant planets to see if they contain the necessary ingredients for life, like liquid water and carbon.  Scientists analyse the light coming from these, their spectra, for the chemical signatures that life leaves in the atmosphere around planets.

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