Looking for aliens on the Moon
Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, says the possibility of such an interesting payoff for little additional cost makes the idea of looking for artefacts worth considering.
"On the Moon, I think it's certainly worthwhile taking a couple hundred square feet or so of material and looking it over," he says. But SETI researchers "probably wouldn't bet their mortgages on finding anything".
Isn't that great, folks? Self-styled alien expert and media darling Seth Shostak grants us permission to look for artifacts on the Moon -- although I doubt his generosity extends to other planetary bodies.
Why a "couple hundred square feet?" Well, Seth's a scientist, so I suppose he must have arrived at that figure through some painstaking statistical survey. The bit about researchers "betting their mortgages" is interesting, too. Perhaps the chances of finding ET relics are slim, but certainly no slimmer than detecting pi via radio signals.
In any case, Seth has spoken! Let the search begin!
1 comment:
Seth has always seemed a little closed-minded in my opinion. But he's the scientist. I'm just a guy in a basement somewhere in the Midwest.
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