The total funding of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) in the U.S. is 0.0003 percent of the tax monies spent on health and human services. And it’s not even tax money. The SETI Institute’s hunt for signals is funded by donations. Seth Shostak Read Quote
Are we the only members of the Galaxy that can actually understand what a galaxy is? Could Homo sapiens really be the pinnacle of Creation – the cleverest critters in the cosmos? If we learn the answer is ‘no,’ that would affect our philosophies forever. Seth Shostak Read Quote
The planets and moons of our solar system are blatantly visible because they reflect sunlight. Without the nearby Sun, these planets would be cryptic and dark on the sky. Seth Shostak Read Quote
The bottom line is that finding orphan planets – small, faint, and located who-knows-where – is not for the faint of heart. The task is comparable to observing a match flame at the distance of Pluto. The WISE satellite, a hi-tech, space-based infrared telescope especially suited for such work, has found only a few. Seth Shostak Read Quote
The longtime standard for American TV was 525 lines from top to bottom of the image. As a practical matter, that was roughly equivalent to 350 thousand pixels – pretty crude, given that photos made with your iPhone boast five million pixels. Seth Shostak Read Quote
Engineers are now experimenting with 4,096-line TV systems, suggesting that with the next generation of sets you’ll be able to count the grass blades on the Superbowl field, an obvious lifestyle improvement. Seth Shostak Read Quote
Estimates are that at least 70 per cent of all stars are accompanied by planets, and since the latter can occur in systems rather than as individuals (think of our own solar system), the number of planets in the Milky Way galaxy is of order one trillion. Seth Shostak Read Quote
The usual metric for whether a planet is habitable or not is to ascertain whether liquid water could exist on its surface. Most worlds will either be too cold, too hot or of a type (like Jupiter) that may have no solid surface and be swaddled in noxious gases. Seth Shostak Read Quote
It’s hardly a secret that I’m skeptical of declarations that the aliens are out and about on our planet. Still, I try to answer every one of these mails and phone calls because, after all, it’s not a violation of physics to travel from one star system to another. Seth Shostak Read Quote
Once typecast as the indispensable altarpiece of a well-appointed living room, TVs have infected every human environment. The average American household has more television sets than people. Seth Shostak Read Quote
