Rare Earth

Names and terms

Rare Earth

The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that complex life is very unlikely elsewhere because Earth's conditions are unusual. The song sings it as loneliness: "a rare earth looking for a friend".

Pale blue dot

Carl Sagan's phrase for Earth in the 1990 Voyager 1 photo taken from about 6 billion kilometres away. The song uses it for Earth as a speck.

Allen Telescope Array

A radio telescope array in California used for SETI. According to the artist, it went dark in early 2011 for lack of funding, and the song was written to help a crowdfunding campaign to bring it back.

Planet's transit

A transit is when a planet passes in front of its star and dims it slightly. Astronomers use the dip to find planets. In the video it is shown as a flux curve.

Drake equation

Frank Drake's 1961 formula for the number of communicating civilizations. The video shows it and spells out the last factor, L, the time a civilization keeps transmitting. The artist says another version sang it.

Robot Ninja Apocalypse

The 2011 band name from the artist's thread: she says it was a joke, chosen because the initials spell RNA.

Suno

An AI music generator. The artist says she had Suno make a techno cover of her 2011 recording and then add her own voice via a voice model.