Forget simply detecting a slight "dip" in brightness as an exoplanet transits in front of its star, soon we'll be able to image the event. What's more, by doing this we'll see that exoplanetary transits look exactly like the historic Venus transit that wowed the world on Tuesday.

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SETI researcher Seth Shostak bets that we will find extraterrestrial life in the next twenty-four years, or he'll buy you a cup of coffee. At TEDxSanJoseCA, he explains why new technologies and the laws of probability make the breakthrough so likely -- and forecasts how the discovery of civilizations far more advanced than ours might affect us here on Earth.

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Interesting interview with Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute: I’m interested to know how the news of alien life – be it of vast intellect (hopefully not “intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic”) or simply microbial – would be greeted on Earth, and whether this would provoke some great [...]

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