”Might it be the discovery of a distant civilization and our common cosmic origins that finally drives home the message of the bond among all humans. Whether we’re born in San Francisco, or Sudan, or close to the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, we are the products of a billion year lineage of wandering stardust. We, all of us, are what happens when a primordial mixture of hydrogen and helium evolves for so long that it begins to ask where it came from.

Jill Tarter, speaking about SETI in her recently released TED Talk.