While human space travel is daunting, machines - with their indefinitely long lifetimes - could travel the galaxy. It might make little… — Seth Shostak Computers Copy Share Image
Admittedly, it would take industrial-grade chutzpah and a massive dose of malevolence for anyone to bulldoze the spot where Neil Armstrong stepped… — Seth Shostak Admittedly Copy Share Image
Virtually any pointed edifice is considered a candidate for alien engineering. After all, how could the Egyptians or Mayans have possibly stacked… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
'Eternal inflation,' as it's called - the endless generation of new universes - may be a hyper-cosmic imperative. It seems that it… — 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 total funding of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) in the U.S. is 0.0003 percent of the tax monies spent on… — Seth Shostak Donations Copy Share Image
Here's a news flash: scientists can be wrong. That's no big deal (unless the scientist is you), since research is self-correcting. Consequently,… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Estimates are that at least 70 per cent of all stars are accompanied by planets, and since the latter can occur in… — Seth Shostak Accompanied Copy Share Image
'Dating Game' wasn't social commentary, political analysis, Shakespearean-level drama or even blunt-force comedy. It was just the televised equivalent of meeting someone… — Seth Shostak Analysis 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 cosmos is three times as old as Earth. During most of creation's 14 billion year history, our solar system wasn't around.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The Moon is a ball of left-over debris from a cosmic collision that took place more than four billion years ago. A… — Seth Shostak Asteroid Copy Share Image
'What was there before the Big Bang?' That's a question that both kids and adults love to pose to anyone who seems… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Neil Armstrong was no Christopher Columbus. In most respects, he was better. Unlike the famous fifteenth century seafarer, Armstrong knew where he… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
If the cosmos isn't finite, then far, far away, floating duplicates of your brain - with all its experiences, thoughts, and emotions… — Seth Shostak Astronomy Copy Share Image
Mars still remains the astrobiology community's number one choice for 'nearest rock with life,' but there are many researchers who argue that… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
We're not just any star stuff, most of which is humdrum hydrogen and listless helium. Our bodies include fancier ingredients like carbon,… — 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… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
It's easy to reckon that the oomph to hurl even a Smart Car-size spacecraft to another star at, say, 20 percent the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Everything you see is filtered through your visual system (imperfect) and your brain (also imperfect, despite what your mom told you). Witness… — 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… — Seth Shostak Alien Copy Share Image
The longtime standard for American TV was 525 lines from top to bottom of the image. As a practical matter, that was… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
While about one-third of Americans believe in ghosts, you won't find many exhibits on these spooky beings down at the local science… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The ideas of science germinate in a matrix of established knowledge gained by experiment; they are not lonesome thoughts, born in a… — 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 Alien 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
According to 'Star Trek' mythos, Starfleet Command - operational headquarters for a flotilla of craft that keep the cosmic peace - is… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The Moon stabilizes Earth's obliquity. Well, almost. The tilt actually varies between 22 and 24.5 degrees - and the variation is enough… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Scientists - who prefer explanations subject to laboratory tests - figure that everything we see today was as inevitable as wrinkles, once… — Seth Shostak Astronomy Copy Share Image
Sure, our three-pound brains might be inadequate to understand the universe. But perhaps they're just good enough to build something that can. — Seth Shostak Brains Copy Share Image
Diminutive worlds are more likely to be rocky, and lapped by oceans and atmospheres. In the vernacular of 'Star Trek,' these would… — 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… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Our retinas and brains have been wired by a hundred million years of evolution to find outlines in a visually complex landscape.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Clearly, enriching the cosmos with heavy elements takes a while. So there's inevitably an interval between the sterile aftermath of the Big… — Seth Shostak Aftermath 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
Most of the intelligence out there must be artificial intelligence. We keep looking for critters like us living on a planet like… — Seth Shostak Argument 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 Astronomy Copy Share Image
America's popular heroes have seldom been its great thinkers, and even less its scientists. The success of TV's 'Big Bang Theory,' which… — Seth Shostak America 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
The number of habitable worlds in our galaxy is certainly in the tens of billions, minimum, and we haven't even talked about… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
