Surveying Public Attitudes Concerning Extraterrestrial Life and Biospheres

INVESTIGATORS: Jordan Bimm, Isabella Cisneros

In January 2023 we initiated a project to assess the public’s awareness of extraterrestrial life detection techniques and attitudes towards possible discovery scenarios. Do people understand the difference between a biosignature and a technosignature? Would reactions to a discovery change based on the type of life and its location? SPACELAB plans to gather public opinion data to direct future research in support of astrobiologists, space scientists, science communicators, and space content creators as the search for life in the universe advances. In March 2023 we conducted a pilot study of students, faculty, and staff at the University of Chicago (IRB23-03-40) to gauge their familiarity with different methods of searching for life and their anticipated reactions to different discovery scenarios.