On the cover: A false-color image of the Sun seen in extreme ultraviolet light highlights the roiling, turbulent gas just above the surface. Temperatures in this region exceed 1.5 million degrees Fahrenheit. (JPL)

The computers at the StarDate office have been scanning for ET lately — overnight, on weekends, whenever one of us is away from his desk. Of course, if we had detected a message, you would have heard about it before now. We'll keep searching, though, along with hundreds of thousands of other computer users worldwide who've downloaded software that looks for intelligent radio signals from space. Find out how SETI@home has taken the world by storm.

This summer marks the 75th anniversary of another worldwide effort to listen for signals from another world. The medium in 1924 was America's fledging AM radio network, rather than the Internet of today, but the target was a familiar neighbor. Tune in to "The Mars Channel" on page 16.

Another familiar neighbor is returning to his old ways. The Sun is headed for another peak in its ageless cycle of calm and chaos. Will scientists' theories and predictions for sunspot activity hold up? Will our fragile electronic systems and power grids withstand a constant barrage of solar bursts? Frequent StarDate contributor Bob Zimmerman tells us what to expect starting on page 4.

Read archived news from StarDate magazine in the Resources section.

Every issue of StarDate also includes monthly star charts and stargazing highlights, plus stunning astronomical images.

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