
When Did Life Start in the Universe?
Interstellar xenia, or the welcoming of cosmic strangers, could solve this mystery
Avi Loeb is former chair (2011-2020) of the astronomy department at Harvard University, founding director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He also chairs the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies and the advisory board for the Breakthrough Starshot project, and is a member of President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Loeb is the bestselling author of Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
Interstellar xenia, or the welcoming of cosmic strangers, could solve this mystery
Developing quantum-gravity technologies may elevate us to a “class A” civilization, capable of creating a baby universe
Humanity’s greatest achievement might be building our successors
Much of astrobiology is focused on looking for organisms with chemistry similar to ours—but there could well be other kinds
The Galileo Project seeks to train telescopes on unidentified aerial phenomena
If they exist, they’ll find our puny forays into space completely insignificant
An ancient civilization from a distant star could have created immortal machines to roam the Milky Way and keep its legacy alive
The search for technological relics of extraterrestrial civilizations will inspire the public and attract talent to the field of astronomy
Project Galileo could make that happen sooner rather than later
If any of them represent advanced technology, high-resolution photographs might tell us whether they’re metaphorically labeled “Made in China” or “Made on Exoplanet X”...
The newly organized Galileo Project will use a three-pronged approach to replace unreliable eyewitness reports with reproducible scientific observations
They’ll most likely be robotic and guided by AI—so we’ll need our own AI to figure them out
Favoring science over war would demonstrate our suitability to join a galactic club of civilizations
If they’re really aliens—and they’re benevolent—studying them could potentially transform the prospects for human knowledge and progress
If some UAP turn out to be extraterrestrial technology, they could be dropping sensors for a subsequent craft to tune into. What if ‘Oumuamua is such a craft?
We could do it with the James Webb Space Telescope—but we'd also need to return to the unfiltered curiosity we had as teenagers
There’s a detectable difference between a planet shining with reflected light and a planet glowing with its own artificial illumination
As Oscar Wilde famously observed: Be yourself; everyone else is already taken
If such an object a mere 1,000 times bigger than an atom passed through your body, the result would not be pretty
To put it another way, be yourself; everyone else is already taken
Support science journalism.
Thanks for reading Scientific American. Knowledge awaits.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.
Create Account