“Buying insurance is no one's idea of fun. And it's especially easy to berate something as funky-sounding as writing checks to defend our neighborhoods against apartment-size rocks from space. But this is one insurance pitch that makes perfect sense. Ask the dinos.”

American astronomer and author

G. Seth Shostak is an American astronomer and author, best known as the senior astronomer for the SETI Institute. He has spent his career working in astronomy and public discussion of the search for life beyond Earth. His work at SETI places him at the center of research and outreach on extraterrestrial intelligence. As an author and scientist, he often writes and speaks about astronomy, the search for signals from other civilizations, and related questions about the universe.