Stars Quotes by Seth Shostak

16 Stars quotes by Seth Shostak

Shostak spends his career listening for alien signals, and the stars are his ultimate backdrop. In these sixteen quotes, he balances scientific rigor with a sense of wonder about what might be out there.

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[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

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The bottom line is that the position of the Sun relative to the stars slowly changes for any given date, and over…

Seth Shostak

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We've accounted for 95 percent of all the stars in the Milky Way. The other 5 percent are big, bright stars -…

Seth Shostak

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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

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The mission of NASA's Kepler telescope is to lift the scales from our eyes and reveal to us just how typical our…

Seth Shostak

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The stars look the same from night to night. Nebulae and galaxies are dully immutable, maintaining the same overall appearance for thousands…

Seth Shostak

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If gravity were somewhat stronger or weaker, stars wouldn't exist, and neither would you. And the same can be said of other…

Seth Shostak

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The split between religion and science is relatively new. Isaac Newton, who first worked out the laws by which gravity held the…

Seth Shostak

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There is little chance that aliens from two societies anywhere in the Galaxy will be culturally close enough to really 'get along.'…

Seth Shostak

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The central region of the Milky Way, known as the bulge, is stuffed with literally tens of billions of stars. And most…

Seth Shostak

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Estimates are that at least 70 per cent of all stars are accompanied by planets, and since the latter can occur in…

Seth Shostak

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The most attractive habitats for synthetic sentience might be the vicinities of exceptional sources of energy - for example black holes, or…

Seth Shostak

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Scientists - who prefer explanations subject to laboratory tests - figure that everything we see today was as inevitable as wrinkles, once…

Seth Shostak

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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

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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

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Recent results from astronomers who study the occasional gravitational lensing of unknown worlds by intervening stars suggest that orphan planets could be…

Seth Shostak

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Studying Sol's interior by looking for analogous patterns on its incandescent face is known as helioseismology, an active - if largely unpronounceable - research…

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Some pundits have proposed that the aliens have come here to breed with us. Apparently, too much bike riding or something similar has rendered…

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As far as I can tell, the only unambiguous consequence of the claimed invasion of Earth by beings from another star system has been…

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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…

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Give consideration to the fact that alien astronomers could have scrutinized Earth for more than 4 billion years without detecting any radio signals, despite…

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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…

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Sure, nobody will make a fortune if we figure out why the Big Bang happened. But just about everyone would like to know.

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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…

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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…

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I studied Latin in high school, and I was reading stuff from Cicero. And that signal took a few thousand years to get to…

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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

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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

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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

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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…

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Plate tectonics is not all havoc and destruction. The slow movement of continents and ocean floors recycles carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans back…

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