In the four years since its launch, Kepler has chalked up 122 new and confirmed planets. It's also caught the scent of… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
If aliens are really hanging out in our 'hood, it's hard to imagine any other fact more worthy of study. If not,… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Clearly, unless thinking beings inevitably wipe themselves out soon after developing technology, extraterrestrial intelligence could often be millions or billions of years… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The idea of close encounters of the zero'th kind - which is to say, not a close encounter at all, but simply… — 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
Sure, nobody will make a fortune if we figure out why the Big Bang happened. But just about everyone would like 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
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
Explorers tend to be the aggressive types - why else would they risk scurvy, mutiny and other bad things to go out… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The thing to keep in mind is that we're still in the very early days when it comes to the search for… — 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
Nine out of 10 Hollywood aliens look like us. Oh, sure, they might be short, big-eyed and hairless - decked out in… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
I think there's a lot of intelligence out there, but that's just my guess. Question is: Are they peaceable or hostile? You… — 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
Humans have existed only for the last 0.001 percent of cosmic time. All of which says that - unless the Homo sapiens… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Is E.T. out there? Well, I work at the SETI Institute. That's almost my name. SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. In other… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
