SETI's New Alien Life Hunt Targets 20,000 Small, Dim Stars

Scientists with the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California have just begun a two-year hunt for signs of alien civilizations around 20,000 red dwarfs — stars considerably smaller and dimmer than Earth's sun. Red dwarfs are promising targets for SETI scientists. For example, exoplanet discoveries suggest that a large fraction of red dwarfs — between one-sixth and one-half, in fact — host planets in their habitable zone.