Articles about SETI

How ‘Big Data’ could help SETI researchers intensify the search for alien civilizations

Could far-off aliens be sending out signals telling us they exist? If so, how would we know where to look?… Read More

SETI and other alien-hunting strategies are dealing with new tools — and new troubles

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, better known as SETI, is taking advantage of a widening array of strategies — ranging… Read More

Scientists look for new ways to track the technosignatures of alien civilizations

Could extraterrestrial civilizations leave their fingerprints as chlorofluorocarbons in planetary atmospheres, or the waste heat generated by industrial processes, or… Read More

44 years after its first message to aliens, Arecibo Observatory calls for follow-up

The Arecibo Observatory today kicked off a student-focused competition to design a new message to beam to extraterrestrials, 44 years… Read More

Are we alone? NASA turns to the search for technosignatures beyond Earth

It’s been a quarter-century since Congress cut off NASA funding for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, but now… Read More

Artificial intelligence helps SETI sleuths find more radio bursts from mystery source

Researchers at Breakthrough Listen, a multimillion-dollar campaign to seek out signals from alien civilizations, still don’t know exactly what’s causing… Read More

Scientists come up with revised ‘Rio scale’ to rate claims of extraterrestrial contact

For almost 60 years, efforts to pick up signs of extraterrestrial civilizations have yielded a big fat zero, but there… Read More

GJ273 star system with radio transmission

How do we get our message across to the extraterrestrials? The answers are evolving

LOS ANGELES — Last year, scientists sent a binary-coded message telling the aliens what time it was. Next year, it’ll… Read More

SETI Institute gives Drake Award to Univ. of Washington astrobiologist Vikki Meadows

University of Washington astrobiologist Victoria Meadows has become the first woman to receive the SETI Institute’s Frank Drake Award, named… Read More

Scientists want future space telescopes to look for risky signs of alien civilizations

Global warming and nuclear blasts may be bad for humanity, but astrobiologists say they could be good indicators of the… Read More

How scientists are expanding the spectrum for SETI and the search for alien life

BERKELEY, Calif. — Twenty years after the movie “Contact” brought the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, to the big… Read More

SETI scientists report radio silence from interstellar object but will keep listening

News Brief: The scientists behind the Breakthrough Listen initiative say they haven’t detected any radio signals coming from a strange… Read More

Breakthrough Listen will check interstellar object just to make sure it’s not a starship

Is that cigar-shaped, fast-moving interstellar object a spaceship? Almost certainly not, but Breakthrough Listen will check just to make sure. The… Read More

‘Sónar Calling’ campaign broadcasts music and messages to an alien super-Earth

Scientists and artists have banded together to beam coded radio transmissions toward a star that has a potentially habitable planet,… Read More

Billionaire Yuri Milner discusses his plan to look for life on Saturn moon – and his Russian connections

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner today laid out his vision to send the first privately funded interplanetary space mission to look… Read More

Alien-hunting Breakthrough Listen project tracks strange series of 15 radio bursts

Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million initiative aimed at stepping up the search for alien signals, says it’s picked up an… Read More

Marijuana fans mix with space fans at The Goodship Company’s Seattle SETI salon

Is Seattle’s Goodship Higher Education Series about bringing together cannabis users? Or is it about deep subjects like the search for… Read More

Far out, man! SETI astronomer will explain the search for aliens to potential potheads

You don’t have to be stoned to appreciate SETI scientist Seth Shostak’s perspective on the search for extraterrestrials – but… Read More

Podcast

What GeekWire’s top stories of 2016 say about the state of humanity

Unprecedented global connectivity, a search for solitude in a fast-paced world, a yearning to connect with something bigger than ourselves … and,… Read More

Spectral signals from alien civilizations? Fresh set of SETI claims stirs up criticism

Two astronomers have generated a debate by claiming that they may have found the spectral signature of messages from an… Read More

A not-so-simple response: Messages beamed to aliens amid debate over perils

More than 3,000 messages were beamed toward the North Star today by a powerful radio telescope – and although the exercise… Read More

Breakthrough Watch: Alien-hunting effort takes telescopic aim at Proxima Centauri b

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – A multimillion-dollar campaign to look for evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations has added telescopic observations of the nearest known… Read More

Russian SETI researchers say interesting radio signal was definitely not aliens

Russian astronomers acknowledge that they picked up an “interesting radio signal” in the course of their search for alien transmissions,… Read More

Still no aliens in the SETI quest: Lessons learned from that strange radio signal

Fifteen months after an intriguing radio signal was picked up from a sunlike star in the constellation Hercules, follow-up observations… Read More

They’re not saying it’s aliens, but signal traced to sunlike star sparks SETI interest

SETI researchers are buzzing about a strong spike in radio signals that seemed to come from the direction of a… Read More

SETI Institute launches radio search for alien life amid 20,000 red dwarf stars

The SETI Institute is shifting the focus of its search for extraterrestrial intelligence to places that could harbor life that’s… Read More

How to do a reality check on the search for life beyond our solar system

The past decade has brought about a revolution in astronomers’ ability to detect potentially habitable planets, and there’s much, much… Read More

Why haven’t we found aliens? Here’s the bad news, and the good news

It’s a question that goes back decades: If other civilizations have arisen beyond Earth over the course of billions of… Read More

‘Alien megastructure’ revisited: Oddly dimming star poses new mystery

He’s not saying it’s aliens – but an astronomer has raised new questions about KIC 8462852, the strange star that stirred… Read More

Those mysterious bright spots on Ceres? Probably salty ice, scientists say

For months, scientists have puzzled over weirdly bright spots of material shining on the asteroid Ceres, but now they say the… Read More