SETI's Seth Shostak on How, When, and Where We Will Meet Aliens
Alien Finder Taken at the Allen Telescope Array Creative Commons: Colby Gutierrez-KraybillAnd whether they'll look like E.T. As part of my article about the search for extraterrestrial life, I interviewed Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, about when we'll find ET, why intelligent beings will be artificial, not biological, and why arms and legs make more sense than wheels. Here's the fascinating transcript of what he had to say. Jennifer Abbasi: How soon do you think we'll find extraterrestrial life? Seth Shostak: I've said that we'll do it within 20 years, because it's a three-way horserace. Each of these horses has about an equal chance of crossing the finish line first and doing so within two decades. First, we might just find it within the solar system. There are claims that there are plumes of methane gas leaching out of the rocks on Mars. And...