“Recent results from astronomers who study the occasional gravitational lensing of unknown worlds by intervening stars suggest that orphan planets could be at least as numerous as the stars. In other words, there could be hundreds of billions of orphan worlds shuffling through our galaxy.”

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.