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… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Ever since the Second World War, television signals (as well as FM radio and radar) have served as Homo sapiens' emissaries into… — 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
The total number of people that do a job that has the same description as mine in the entire world is fewer… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The principal reason for the universe's poker face is that its constituents are far away. Stars careen through space, and galaxies spin… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
A factory that can turn carbon nanotubes into a sheet a yard wide and long enough to stretch one-fourth of the way… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
It seems that 'rocket scientist' is a job category that's here for the long haul, like 'mortician.' But all this activity masks… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The stars look the same from night to night. Nebulae and galaxies are dully immutable, maintaining the same overall appearance for thousands… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The space elevator's not just another competitive technology, promoted by people who simply like the idea of diminishing the luster of the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Each year, thousands of UFOs are sighted and reported, which is an impressive tally of unidentified aerial phenomena. Surveys show that roughly… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The math is dead simple: it seems that the frequency of planets able to support life is roughly one percent. In other… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Sending greeting cards to aliens is hardly a new idea. In 2005, Craigslist solicited messages for broadcast to space by a transmitter… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Star Trek's genial premise is that the cosmos is flush with intelligent species, and our descendants will interact with them face-to-face, thanks… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
A practical way to travel between the stars is a must-have for space opera, and a sine qua non for our frequently… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
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
While human space travel is daunting, machines - with their indefinitely long lifetimes - could travel the galaxy. It might make little… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
It bears mentioning that the Milky Way is only one of 150 billion galaxies visible to our telescopes - and each of… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Consider: The human genome consists of about 3.3 billion base pairs. Since there are only four types of pair, that amounts to… — 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
