The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe and the evolution of intelligence. Our research includes cosmology and astrophysics, planets and habitability, and life. From the early universe and formation of stars, galaxies, planets and prebiotic chemistry, to the establishment of environments suitable to the onset of life and evolution of simple life to complex organisms, intelligence and technology, we seek to answer the question, "are we alone?" We are partners to NASA in areas of basic research and support science missions. We also undertake research in non-human communication, quantum astronomy, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) using both radio and optical telescopes.
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In a groundbreaking announcement at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in The Woodlands, Texas, scientists revealed the discovery of a relict glacier near the equator of Mars. Located in Eastern Noctis Labyrinthus ...
Astrobiology
Mar 15, 2023
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Wouldn't finding life on other worlds be easier if we knew exactly where to look? Researchers have limited opportunities to collect samples on Mars or elsewhere or access remote sensing instruments when hunting for life beyond ...
Astrobiology
Mar 6, 2023
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Citizen scientists worldwide made decisive contributions to defend our planet by recording accurate and meaningful observations supporting the NASA DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission. The team, including eight ...
Astronomy
Mar 2, 2023
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When pondering the probability of discovering technologically advanced extraterrestrial life, the question that often arises is, "if they're out there, why haven't we found them yet?" And often, the response is that we have ...
Astronomy
Jan 30, 2023
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New research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters suggests that Mars was born wet, with a dense atmosphere allowing warm-to-hot oceans for millions of years. To reach this conclusion, researchers developed the ...
Astrobiology
Sep 21, 2022
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The SETI Institute and its partner Unistellar are launching a new exoplanet detection program that will engage citizen scientists worldwide. Amateur astronomers, using either Unistellar's eVscope or another telescope, will ...
Astronomy
Sep 19, 2022
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When a small asteroid enters Earth's atmosphere from space, its surface is brutally heated, causing melting and fragmenting. Therefore, why the rocks near the surface survive to the ground as meteorites has been somewhat ...
Astronomy
Aug 8, 2022
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New research detected strong polarization from a young supernova remnant. It provided independent and solid evidence that the cosmic dust in the early universe was formed in supernovae. While it's true that supernovae eject ...
Astronomy
Jun 13, 2022
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In our solar system, there are several thousand examples of co-orbital objects: bodies that share the same orbit around the sun or a planet. The Trojan asteroids are such an example. We have not yet observed any similar co-orbitals ...
Astronomy
May 26, 2022
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COSMIC SETI (the Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) took a big step towards using the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) for 24/7 ...
Astronomy
Apr 4, 2022
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