Key insights from
Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth
By Avi Loeb
What you'll learn
On the night of October 19, 2017, the waves cradling the coast of the Haleakalā Observatory in Hawaii glowed yellow as the sky broke into a bright, pulsing light—or, not so much. While the first glimpse of an interstellar neighbor provokes expectations of flying saucers, probing lasers, and small, oddly disproportionate people asking you to take them to your leader, the appearance of ‘Oumuamua was nothing of the sort. Despite provocative evidence that our quiet visitor is in fact a glimmer of extraterrestrial intelligence, the scientific community is apprehensive to entertain this paradigm-shifting possibility. Acclaimed astrophysicist and Harvard professor, Avi Loeb defies the academic crowd to encourage an evidence-based search for extraterrestrial intelligence, a humbling inquiry that may change the nature of science itself.
Key insights
- 1 We might have a new neighbor—an interstellar interloper flew through our solar system.
- 2 While many scientists concluded that ‘Oumuamua was a comet, its shape, luminosity, and trajectory say otherwise.
- 3 If we can do it, they can too—scientists should use terrestrial technologies to predict extraterrestrial possibilities.
- 4 SETI, or the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, lives in the basement of academia.
- 5 The quest for extraterrestrial intelligence enhances terrestrial life and its pursuit of scientific truth.
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