Are earthlings the smartest creatures in the Galaxy?

You may find this a comforting thought, but it's unlikely to be true. Astronomy research of the last dozen years has revealed that planets are as common as summer mosquitoes, a remarkable discovery. Yes, most extraterrestrial worlds will be unappealing for biology. But some, by chance, are bound to be blessed with liquid oceans and thick atmospheres. NASA's Kepler mission will, in the next thousand days, tell us how common Earth-like worlds are. The expectation is that tens of millions of terrestrial cousins spin -- silent and unseen -- in the dark spaces of our galaxy.

Some of these planets might have spawned not just life, but intelligence. The aliens that are so often portrayed in films and television may have real counterparts, awaiting our discovery.

Uncovering the aliens is the goal of a small research effort named SETI: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The International Academy of Astronautics has a Permanent Study Group for SETI, and during each IAC, two sessions are dedicated to the science and sociology of this discipline.

On Wednesday (October 14), Myung-Kyun Rhee, of the Yonsei University Observatory, presented a report on the new SETI efforts being undertaken in Korea. Formerly the provenance of only a few countries (United States, Italy, and occasionally Australia), SETI is now developing an Asian component. The Koreans are planning to swing three antennas normally used for radio astronomy towards the sky in the hopes of picking up a signal that would tell us that earthlings have cosmic company.

The search for clever beings elsewhere -- should it succeed -- would tell us something profoundly interesting: namely, that what happened here on Earth is no miracle. It would prove, in a stroke, that life is a commonplace, and intelligence is a natural product of the universe. We would no longer need be terrified, as was Blaise Pascal so many years ago, of the comos' forbidding enormity.

Seth Shostak
Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute and
Chair, IAA SETI Permanent Study Group