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" Just knowing that there's somebody else out there - that what's happened on this planet has also happened in many other places - that might change our lives in a very subtle way, but it's interesting to know and worth looking for. "

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" 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

Will

Water

" Like prospecting in the 19th century, reconnaissance of the asteroids would of necessity take place in an arena where trouble is likely and help is distant. Heroic stories of individual triumph and failure, set on landscapes never seen by humankind, are in the cards. "

" Our brains are continuing to evolve, and perhaps a few tens of thousands of years from now, our descendants will walk around with five pound brains, allowing them insights that we can't imagine. "

" Disasters happen. We still have no way to eliminate earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, floods or droughts. We cope as best we can by fortifying ourselves against danger with building codes and levees, and by setting aside money to clean up afterwards. "

" The Earth has been lawned with life for something over 3.5 billion years. That's a span of time great enough to encompass some honest-to-goodness catastrophe. For example, 700 million years ago, Earth underwent a planet-wide deep freeze, with ice covering the oceans from the poles to the equator. "

" The principal reason for the universe's poker face is that its constituents are far away. Stars careen through space, and galaxies spin at speeds thousands of times faster than a jet plane. But given their distance, you'd need the patience of Job to notice much change in their appearance or position. "

" America's popular heroes have seldom been its great thinkers, and even less its scientists. The success of TV's 'Big Bang Theory,' which seems to give the lie to this claim, is more the exception that proves the rule. "

" The thing to keep in mind is that we're still in the very early days when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Saying there's a silence is a bit like if Columbus, looking to discover a new continent, only sailed 10 miles off the coast of Spain before turning back to say, 'Nothing out there!' "

" I got interested in astronomy at the age of 8 because I was looking at an atlas of the planets in my parents' apartment in Arlington, where I grew up. I got a telescope at age 10, which is pretty normal, and by the time I was in eighth grade, I had already seen a lot of cheesy sci-fi films. "

" The ideas of science germinate in a matrix of established knowledge gained by experiment; they are not lonesome thoughts, born in a rarified realm where no researcher has ever gone before. "

" Consider: The human genome consists of about 3.3 billion base pairs. Since there are only four types of pair, that amounts to 0.8 gigabytes of information, or about what you can fit on a CD. With a microwave radio transmitter, you could beam that amount of information into space in a few minutes, and have it travel to anyone at light speed. "

" 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. "

" Everything you see is filtered through your visual system (imperfect) and your brain (also imperfect, despite what your mom told you). Witness testimony is the worst kind of evidence in science. "

" I've often fantasized about visiting the Bahamian beach where Columbus first stumbled ashore in 1492. Sadly, no one knows where that beach is. In fact, no one's even sure which island Columbus first encountered (there are three candidates). It's a pity, a disappointment, and a lost revenue source for the Bahamians. "

" There's no doubt that the Moon is more than a handy night light and a hair restorer for werewolves. It's responsible for the substantial amplitude of earthly ocean tides. These are of obvious influence if you're a geoduck, a type of clam that people dig up at low tide. "

" If this is the only planet on which not only life, but intelligent life, has arisen, that would be very unusual. "

" Frankly, I'll believe in horoscopes the day I can describe my personality to an astrologer and they tell me what date I was born. "

" Faith is a personal matter, and should never be a cudgel to stifle inquiry. We tried that approach about 1,200 years ago. The experiment was called the Dark Ages. "

" Many people suggest using mathematics to talk to the aliens, and Dutch computer scientist Alexander Ollongren has developed an entire language (Lincos) based on this idea. But my personal opinion is that mathematics may be a hard way to describe ideas like love or democracy. "

" As far as I can tell, the only unambiguous consequence of the claimed invasion of Earth by beings from another star system has been a nonstop torrent of TV specials. So if you're one of the many who believe the aliens are here, you really do have to admit this: They're the best houseguests ever. "

" '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 at a bar. But it appealed to our most basic Darwinian instinct: selecting a good mate. You can't go wrong when a show's premise is hard-wired into human DNA. "

" The fact that we can't easily foresee clues that would betray an intelligence a million millennia farther down the road suggests that we're like ants trying to discover humans. Ask yourself: Would ants ever recognize houses, cars, or fire hydrants as the work of advanced biology? "

" In archaeology, context is the basis of many discoveries that are imputed to the deliberate workings of intelligence. If I find a rock chipped in such a way as to give it a sharp edge, and the discovery is made in a cave, I am seduced into ascribing this to tool use by distant, fetid and furry ancestors. "

" We haven't yet found a speck of evidence for biology on another world, so we have no objective way to judge whether life is a onetime fluke or a near-inevitable phenomenon. "

" 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 either biologists or music fans. Neither one has much reason to antagonize our armed forces. "

" On Mars, where the air is spare - a hundred times less dense than on Earth - someone could hear you scream. But you'd have to really strain to get anyone's attention. On the Red Planet, where the wind is high-pitched and faint, even a symphony orchestra will sound as thin as cheap gruel. "

" Ever since the Second World War, television signals (as well as FM radio and radar) have served as Homo sapiens' emissaries into deep space. High-frequency, high-power broadcasts have filled an Earth-centered bubble more than 60 light-years in radius with signals. "

" Hollywood usually guesses that extraterrestrials would only be interested in one of three things: (1) They want to breed with us, because their own reproductive machinery is on the blink; (2) They want Earth's resources; or (3) They want the Earth. All of it. "

Seth Shostak

Own

Three

" We'll be 'outsourcing' our creativity and our thought processes to manufactured components that could be inconspicuously implanted beneath our coiffeurs. Welcome to the Borg. You might not be entirely comfortable with such cybernetic enhancements, but all the smart money says it's going to happen. "

" Even if the Moon didn't exist - even if it had been vaporized billions of years ago by cantankerous Klingons - there would still be (somewhat lower) tides raised by the Sun. For creatures dependent on the oceans' ebb and flow, life could go on. "