This plucky NASA telescope is able to find planets en masse. If you compare planet hunting to prospecting for gold, then Kepler… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
One of the jovian moons, Europa, is coated with twice as much liquid water as is sloshing around our planet. — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
If this is the only planet on which not only life, but intelligent life, has arisen, that would be very unusual. — 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
Imagine if the dinosaurs had tried picturing the rulers of their planet 100 million years hence. They'd undoubtedly envision these creatures as...… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
We're interested in things that have big teeth, and you can see the evolutionary value of that, and you can also see… — 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
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
It's hardly a secret that I'm skeptical of declarations that the aliens are out and about on our planet. Still, I try… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The strongest signals leaking off our planet are radar transmissions, not television or radio. The most powerful radars, such as the one… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The bottom line is, like, one in five stars has at least one planet where life might spring up. That's a fantastically… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Just knowing that there's somebody else out there - that what's happened on this planet has also happened in many other places… — 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
The usual metric for whether a planet is habitable or not is to ascertain whether liquid water could exist on its surface.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
In days gone by, scientists would speak solemnly about our solar system's 'habitable zone' - a theoretical region extending from Venus to… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Most of the intelligence out there must be artificial intelligence. We keep looking for critters like us living on a planet like… — 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
