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Scientist Quotes
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
Build
Enough
Good
Inadequate
Just
Might
Our
Perhaps
Something
Sure
Understand
Universe
design
copy
Television is ephemeral, a fact that some will find reassuring. But earthlings will continue to pump the kilowatts into the ether. And eventually, when those signals have washed over a few hundred thousand star systems, someone may notice.
~ Seth Shostak
Continue
Ephemeral
Ether
Eventually
Fact
Few
Find
Hundred
May
Notice
Over
Pump
Reassuring
Signals
Some
Someone
Star
Systems
Television
Those
Thousand
Washed
Will
design
copy
Thanks to the fact that the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, and invoking a bunch of Newtonian physics, you can deduce that our planet wobbles, too, taking roughly 26,000 years to trace out a small circle on the sky, a phenomenon known as precession.
~ Seth Shostak
Bunch
Circle
Earth
Fact
Known
Our
Our Planet
Out
Perfect
Phenomenon
Physics
Planet
Roughly
Sky
Small
Sphere
Taking
Thanks
Too
Trace
Years
You
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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
Bottom
Bottom Line
Comparable
Distance
Faint
Few
Finding
Flame
Found
Heart
Line
Located
Match
Observing
Only
Orphan
Planets
Pluto
Satellite
Small
Suited
Task
Telescope
Wise
Work
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The bottom line is that the position of the Sun relative to the stars slowly changes for any given date, and over the course of 26,000 years, it can easily slide between constellations. So you may think you're a Pisces, but you're actually an Aquarius.
~ Seth Shostak
Actually
Any
Aquarius
Between
Bottom
Bottom Line
Changes
Constellations
Course
Date
Easily
Given
Line
May
Over
Pisces
Position
Relative
Slide
Slowly
Stars
Sun
Think
Years
You
design
copy
The bottom line is, like, one in five stars has at least one planet where life might spring up. That's a fantastically large percentage. That means in our galaxy, there's on the order of tens of billions of Earth-like worlds.
~ Seth Shostak
At Least One
Billions
Bottom
Bottom Line
Five
Galaxy
Large
Large Percentage
Least
Life
Like
Line
Means
Might
Order
Our
Percentage
Planet
Spring
Stars
Tens
Up
Where
Worlds
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The central region of the Milky Way, known as the bulge, is stuffed with literally tens of billions of stars. And most of these are old - considerably older than our Sun or its neighbors - because this part of the galaxy formed first. Consequently, bulge stars are generally deficient in heavy elements.
~ Seth Shostak
Because
Billions
Central
Consequently
Considerably
Deficient
Elements
First
Formed
Galaxy
Generally
Heavy
Known
Literally
Milky Way
Most
Neighbors
Old
Older
Our
Part
Region
Stars
Stuffed
Sun
Tens
Than
Way
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The cosmos is three times as old as Earth. During most of creation's 14 billion year history, our solar system wasn't around. Nonetheless, the early universe still had the right stuff for life, and contained worlds that were just as suitable for spawning biology and intelligence as our own.
~ Seth Shostak
Around
Billion
Biology
Contained
Cosmos
Creation
Early
Earth
Had
History
Intelligence
Just
Life
Most
Nonetheless
Old
Our
Own
Right
Solar
Solar System
Still
Stuff
Suitable
System
Three
Times
Universe
Were
Worlds
Year
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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.
~ Seth Shostak
Been
Billion
Catastrophe
Covering
Deep
Earth
Encompass
Enough
Example
For Example
Freeze
Great
Has-Been
Ice
Life
Million
Million Years
Oceans
Over
Poles
Some
Something
Span
Time
Years
Years Ago
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The era during which only governments could put hardware on the Moon is coming to an end. There are 26 private teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X-Prize - to be awarded for sending a robotic spacecraft to this nearby world that can roam at least 500 meters, and send back data such as a photo.
~ Seth Shostak
Awarded
Back
Coming
Competing
Could
Data
End
Era
Google
Governments
Hardware
Least
Million
Moon
Nearby
Only
Photo
Private
Put
Roam
Robotic
Send
Sending
Teams
Which
World
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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?
~ Seth Shostak
Advanced
Ants
Ask
Betray
Biology
Car
Clues
Discover
Down
Down The Road
Easily
Ever
Fact
Farther
Fire
Foresee
Houses
Humans
Intelligence
Like
Millennia
Million
Recognize
Road
Trying
Work
Would
Yourself
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The idea of close encounters of the zero'th kind - which is to say, not a close encounter at all, but simply uncovering evidence that someone's out there - dates back to the Victorian era.
~ Seth Shostak
Back
Close
Dates
Encounter
Encounters
Era
Evidence
Idea
Kind
Out
Say
Simply
Someone
Victorian
Which
design
copy
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.
~ Seth Shostak
Before
Born
Established
Ever
Experiment
Gained
Gone
Ideas
Knowledge
Lonesome
Matrix
Realm
Researcher
Science
Thoughts
Where
design
copy
The limitless content of our universe might be only one instance of a large (and possibly infinite) number of other universes.
~ Seth Shostak
Content
Infinite
Instance
Large
Limitless
Might
Number
Only
Other
Our
Possibly
Universe
Universes
design
copy
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
American
Boast
Bottom
Crude
Equivalent
Five
Given
Image
iPhone
Lines
Made
Matter
Million
Photos
Practical
Pretty
Roughly
Standard
Thousand
Top
TV
Your
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The majority of my UFO diet consists of reports describing suspected encounters. This is not surprising, as there are thousands of sightings annually. The emailer has seen something unusual in the sky that he interprets as probable evidence of alien presence.
~ Seth Shostak
Alien
Consists
Describing
Diet
Encounters
Evidence
He
Majority
Presence
Probable
Reports
Seen
Sky
Something
Surprising
Suspected
Thousands
UFO
Unusual
design
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The math is dead simple: it seems that the frequency of planets able to support life is roughly one percent. In other words, a billion or more such worlds exist in our galaxy alone. That's a lot of acreage, and it takes industrial-strength credulity to believe it's all bleakly barren.
~ Seth Shostak
Able
Alone
Barren
Believe
Billion
Credulity
Dead
Exist
Frequency
Galaxy
In Other Words
Life
Lot
Math
More
One Percent
Other
Our
Percent
Planets
Roughly
Seems
Simple
Support
Takes
Words
Worlds
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The mission of NASA's Kepler telescope is to lift the scales from our eyes and reveal to us just how typical our home world is. Kepler operates by measuring the dimming of stars as planets pass ('transit') in front of them. It has found thousands of previously unknown worlds.
~ Seth Shostak
Eyes
Found
Front
Home
How
Just
Lift
Measuring
Mission
NASA
Our
Pass
Planets
Reveal
Scales
Stars
Telescope
Them
Thousands
Transit
Typical
Unknown
Us
World
Worlds
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The Moon is a ball of left-over debris from a cosmic collision that took place more than four billion years ago. A Mars-sized asteroid - one of the countless planetesimals that were frantically churning our solar system into existence - hit the infant Earth, bequeathing it a very large natural satellite.
~ Seth Shostak
Asteroid
Ball
Billion
Collision
Cosmic
Countless
Earth
Existence
Four
Hit
Infant
Large
Moon
More
Natural
Our
Place
Satellite
Solar
Solar System
System
Than
Took
Very
Were
Years
Years Ago
design
copy
The Moon stabilizes Earth's obliquity. Well, almost. The tilt actually varies between 22 and 24.5 degrees - and the variation is enough to induce such environmental inconveniences as the occasional ice age. Without the Moon, it might be much worse.
~ Seth Shostak
Actually
Age
Almost
Between
Degrees
Earth
Enough
Environmental
Ice
Ice Age
Inconvenience
Induce
Might
Moon
Much
Occasional
Tilt
Variation
Varies
Well
Without
Worse
design
copy
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