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
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… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
It seems obvious that if a species has the brainpower for speech, along with the sort of appendages that can manipulate a… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
There will be an end point to how good TV pictures can get. The boob tube has hugely benefited from the rapid… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Our computers double in capability on time scales of only a few years. It's hardly outrageous to believe that we will successfully… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
By 2020, most home computers will have the computing power of a human brain. That doesn't mean that they are brains, but… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
We can no better imagine what will be happening on the moon 500 years from now than Columbus could imagine contemporary Manhattan.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Mining asteroids is a well-oiled trope of science-fiction. But someday, actually doing it will make economic sense. Many of the essential metals… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
It will be the mother of all telescopes, and you can bet it will do for astronomy what genome sequencing is doing… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Of course there is still unexplored terrestrial territory, but most of it is waterlogged. Submersed secret places, such as the Challenger Deep,… — 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
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
Our brains are continuing to evolve, and perhaps a few tens of thousands of years from now, our descendants will walk around… — 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
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
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
Television is ephemeral, a fact that some will find reassuring. But earthlings will continue to pump the kilowatts into the ether. And… — 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
Are two eyes, four appendages and an upright posture really essential for any creature that can ace the galactic SAT's? Maybe not.… — 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
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
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
