“Someone described my office as an eight-year-old’s daydream,” says Jill Tarter, astronomer and the inspiration for the protagonist in Carl Sagan’s Contact. As the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute’s first employee, Tarter has accumulated E.T.-themed office ornaments for the last 30 years — including a bottle of wine to be opened “only upon detection of Extraterrestrial signal.”
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About Flora Lichtman
Flora Lichtman is a host of Science Friday. In a previous life, she lived on a research ship where apertivi were served on the top deck, hoisted there via pulley by the ship’s chef.