The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a multidisciplinary research area focused on detecting evidence of technologically advanced civilizations beyond Earth, primarily through their electromagnetic emissions or technosignatures. It integrates radio astronomy, signal processing, astrophysics, planetary science, and increasingly machine learning to monitor and analyze vast bandwidths of the sky for narrowband, pulsed, or otherwise non-natural signals. Research addresses detection algorithms, interference mitigation, instrument calibration, and statistical frameworks for evaluating candidate signals. Modern SETI also explores non-radio channels, including optical or infrared beacons and other engineered signatures, and develops quantitative strategies for survey design, target selection, and constraints on the prevalence of technological life.
We have been searching for signals from other civilizations for over sixty years. Radio telescopes on Earth have swept the sky, listened patiently, and found nothing but silence. It is a search that demands extraordinary ...
Astronomy
Apr 14, 2026
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If we're to find extraterrestrial life in the universe, astronomers have pinpointed the best places to look for it. They have identified just under 50 rocky worlds most likely to be habitable out of the more than 6,000 exoplanets ...
Astrobiology
Mar 19, 2026
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A new study by researchers at the SETI Institute suggests that stellar "space weather" could make radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligence harder to detect. Stellar activity and plasma turbulence near a transmitting ...
Astronomy
Mar 5, 2026
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It is one of the most famous questions in science, and it was asked, as legend has it, over lunch. Enrico Fermi, the physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor and whose name graces a unit of length so small it ...
Astrobiology
Mar 2, 2026
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If you've been following exoplanet research over the last couple of years, you've definitely heard of K2-18b. Located 124 light years away in the constellation Leo, it's attracted a lot of attention as it sits squarely in ...
Astrobiology
Feb 24, 2026
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For decades, scientists have searched the skies for signs of extraterrestrial technology. A study from EPFL asks a sharp question: if alien signals have already reached Earth without us noticing, what should we realistically ...
Astronomy
Feb 16, 2026
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The combustible sedimentary rock, better known as coal, was not only crucial to the onset of advanced technology here on Earth, but it should also be key to the development of advanced E.T.s residing on any given exoearth. ...
Astrobiology
Feb 9, 2026
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New theoretical models have strengthened the case that immense, energy-harvesting structures orbiting their host stars could exist in principle in distant stellar systems. With the right engineering precautions, calculations ...
Alicja Ostrowska's doctoral thesis "Life and AI at NASA" examines how artificial intelligence is transforming the way science is conducted within some of the world's most ambitious space projects. The study investigates how ...
Astrobiology
Jan 21, 2026
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For 21 years, between 1999 and 2020, millions of people worldwide loaned UC Berkeley scientists their computers to search for signs of advanced civilizations in our galaxy.
Astronomy
Jan 13, 2026
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