Do aliens exist? If they did, would we know? | NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller

Give yourself the gift of knowledge — subscribe to Big Think Edge: http://bit.ly/bigthinkedge We still don't have proof of intelligent life beyond that on Earth. - One of the biggest questions is whether we are alone in the universe — could there be other intelligent life, besides us, out there? Currently, we don't have any evidence aliens exist. - There may have been a chance for a civilization to start billions of years before life began on Earth — one that is far more advanced, technologically speaking, than us. However, they're not making it very obvious. We have no proof of this. - If such an advanced civilization exists, though, it probably relies on solar energy to fuels its everyday activities. Dr. Michelle Thaller is an astronomer who studies binary stars and the life cycles of stars. She is Assistant Director of Science Communication at NASA. She went to college at Harvard University, completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif. then started working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Spitzer Space Telescope. After a hugely successful mission, she moved on to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in the Washington D.C. area. In her off-hours often puts on about 30lbs of Elizabethan garb and performs intricate Renaissance dances. For more information, visit NASA.gov If you're interested in licensing this or any other Big Think clip for commercial or private use, contact our licensing partner Executive Interviews: https://ift.tt/2IQF1gR Read more at BigThink.com: Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://ift.tt/1qJMX5g Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink