The Moon stabilizes Earth's obliquity. Well, almost. The tilt actually varies between 22 and 24.5 degrees - and the variation is enough… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Jupiter, a world far larger than Earth, is so warm that it currently radiates more internal heat than it receives from the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Give consideration to the fact that alien astronomers could have scrutinized Earth for more than 4 billion years without detecting any radio… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Five centuries ago, Copernicus upset humanity's applecart with the news that the Earth is not the center of the cosmos. It could… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
About the only things that are unique to Earth are our biota and our culture. If aliens ever come here, they'd most… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Thanks to the fact that the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, and invoking a bunch of Newtonian physics, you can deduce that… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
I you look at the drawings of aliens made by people who believe that Earth is under saucer attack, you'll quickly note… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Very few societies on Earth developed science as we know it today. On the other hand, the number is not zero -… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Consider: Life arose on Earth close to four billion years ago. Four billion years of slithering, swimming, and soaring life forms. But… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
On Mars, where the air is spare - a hundred times less dense than on Earth - someone could hear you scream.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Today's voguish threats, including climate change, population growth, massive war, and resource depletion, are all amenable to a fix if we act… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Five centuries from now - barring unimaginable catastrophe - the moon will be developed real estate. There's economic incentive to exploit the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The Earth has been lawned with life for something over 3.5 billion years. That's a span of time great enough to encompass… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
If you could drive straight down, into a tunnel bored through the crust of the planet, you'd hit this molten mess in… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The Moon is a ball of left-over debris from a cosmic collision that took place more than four billion years ago. A… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The cosmos is three times as old as Earth. During most of creation's 14 billion year history, our solar system wasn't around.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
When I was a kid, which was just after Edison invented moving pictures, there were films that involved aliens coming to Earth… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Forecasting Armageddon has become trendy of late, with a great deal of attention being given to an interpretation of the Mayan Calendar… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
'E.T.' was far-fetched. 'E.T.' was this wimpy-looking kid that came to Earth to pick some plants, but he came from the Andromeda… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Data from orbiting telescopes like NASA's Kepler Mission hint that the tally of habitable planets in our galaxy is many billion. If… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
I still remember my dismay in the summer of 2007 when - for the first time in the history of planet Earth… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
As far as I can tell, the only unambiguous consequence of the claimed invasion of Earth by beings from another star system… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
What's a space elevator? Simply described, it's a thin ribbon, about 3 feet wide and 60 thousand miles long, stretching upwards from… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
A century ago, scientists believed there was only one obvious stomping ground for alien biology in our solar system: Mars. Because it… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Hollywood usually guesses that extraterrestrials would only be interested in one of three things: (1) They want to breed with us, because… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
[O]ne might ask why, in a galaxy of a few hundred billion stars, the aliens are so intent on coming to Earth… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Given the tendency of many to picture God's realm as somewhere high above Earth - an idea that sounds suspiciously like the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
You may not see massive UFO exhibits at your local science museum, but there's no dearth of saucer stories infesting my email.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Every day, the temperature of Sol's surface increases by five billionths of a degree, a change of no consequence for thousands of… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Plate tectonics is not all havoc and destruction. The slow movement of continents and ocean floors recycles carbon dioxide dissolved in the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Studying Sol's interior by looking for analogous patterns on its incandescent face is known as helioseismology, an active - if largely unpronounceable - research… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Some pundits have proposed that the aliens have come here to breed with us. Apparently, too much bike riding or something similar has rendered… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
As far as I can tell, the only unambiguous consequence of the claimed invasion of Earth by beings from another star system has been… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Look, science is hard, it has a reputation of being hard, and the facts are, it is hard, and that's the result of 400… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Give consideration to the fact that alien astronomers could have scrutinized Earth for more than 4 billion years without detecting any radio signals, despite… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
In a movie, it's often important to have aliens whose gestures and facial expressions can be 'read' by humans. And in the days before… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Sure, nobody will make a fortune if we figure out why the Big Bang happened. But just about everyone would like to know. — Seth Shostak Copy Share
If you could drive straight down, into a tunnel bored through the crust of the planet, you'd hit this molten mess in about an… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
While I have always thought that the motivation for looking for E.T. was both self-evident and patently worthy, it's possible that I'm a victim… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
I studied Latin in high school, and I was reading stuff from Cicero. And that signal took a few thousand years to get to… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
About the only things that are unique to Earth are our biota and our culture. If aliens ever come here, they'd most likely be… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
This plucky NASA telescope is able to find planets en masse. If you compare planet hunting to prospecting for gold, then Kepler is equivalent… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
The most attractive habitats for synthetic sentience might be the vicinities of exceptional sources of energy - for example black holes, or even the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Buying insurance is no one's idea of fun. And it's especially easy to berate something as funky-sounding as writing checks to defend our neighborhoods… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Plate tectonics is not all havoc and destruction. The slow movement of continents and ocean floors recycles carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans back… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
![“[O]ne might ask why, in a galaxy of a few hundred billion stars, the aliens are so intent on coming to Earth at all. It would be as if every vertebrate in North America somehow felt drawn to a particular house in Peoria, Illinois. Are we really that interesting?” quote by Seth Shostak](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/223/seth-shostak-2047_aliens_o-ne-might-ask-why-in-a-galaxy-of-a-few_2866062.png)
