The SETI Institute engagement report
@SETIInstitute - 680K followers on X
Measured over 75 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on October 3, 2026.
Engagement
A typical post picks up 62 interactions against 680K followers, an engagement rate of 0.009%. Measured over 75 original posts, its engagement rate beats 32% of 21,185 tracked accounts of a similar size, which puts it in the middle of its size range rather than at either end. Posts are seen about 7.5K times each, and 0.825% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 1.11% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 2.7 posts a day over the last 30 days, with activity on almost every day in the window. Most posts go out around 15:00 UTC, and Thursday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 75 posts sampled, 69% carry an image or video and 61% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 611 interactions, about 9.9x its own typical post. Recurring topics include #ppod, #setilive, #mars.
Measured over 75 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on October 3, 2026. Recurring tags: #ppod, #setilive, #mars.
Compared with accounts its own size
The SETI Institute's engagement rate beats 32% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (21,185 accounts, accounts of similar size (decile 10 of 10)). A percentile is spread evenly by construction, so 50 really is the middle of that group and 90 really is its top tenth.
On engagement per impression rather than per follower it beats 42% of the same group. When those two numbers disagree, the gap is about how far its posts travel rather than how people react to them.
Where this sits in the catalog
At 0.009%, The SETI Institute sits above the 10th percentile of the 212,741 accounts in this comparison. That places it in the bottom 25% band, which runs below 0.025%.
Show the percentile table
| Percentile | Engagement rate |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | 0.004% |
| 25th percentile | 0.025% |
| 50th percentile | 0.146% |
| 75th percentile | 0.697% |
| 90th percentile | 2.61% |
| 99th percentile | 82.8% |
This ruler is the whole measured catalog, not a size-matched group: it shows where the raw rate falls across every account we can measure, all of which are large. For a like-for-like comparison, read the size-band percentile above instead. See how the bands are built
Posting timing
This account posts most often around 15:00 UTC, and Thursday is its busiest day of the week. The bars below are the catalog-wide pattern, with this account's own busiest slot marked. They do not show how this account performs at each hour: we keep one aggregate per account, not one per hour, so that measurement does not exist in our data.
Show engagement by hour posted, utc as a table
| Hour (UTC) | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC | -1% | 89K |
| 01:00 UTC | -2% | 90K |
| 02:00 UTC | -3% | 88K |
| 03:00 UTC | -4% | 94K |
| 04:00 UTC | -5% | 76K |
| 05:00 UTC | -4% | 75K |
| 06:00 UTC | -5% | 86K |
| 07:00 UTC | -5% | 93K |
| 08:00 UTC | -4% | 108K |
| 09:00 UTC | -4% | 124K |
| 10:00 UTC | -3% | 129K |
| 11:00 UTC | -3% | 141K |
| 12:00 UTC | -3% | 154K |
| 13:00 UTC | -3% | 167K |
| 14:00 UTC | -4% | 173K |
| 15:00 UTC | -2% | 176K |
| 16:00 UTC | -3% | 171K |
| 17:00 UTC | -3% | 159K |
| 18:00 UTC | -2% | 149K |
| 19:00 UTC | -2% | 141K |
| 20:00 UTC | -1% | 131K |
| 21:00 UTC | 0% | 116K |
| 22:00 UTC | -2% | 100K |
| 23:00 UTC | -1% | 90K |
Show engagement by day of week as a table
| Day | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | +5% | 393K |
| Monday | +1% | 483K |
| Tuesday | -2% | 520K |
| Wednesday | -3% | 472K |
| Thursday | -2% | 430K |
| Friday | -3% | 447K |
| Saturday | +2% | 393K |
Formats this account uses
Its own posting mix on the left, and what each of those formats does across every account we track on the right. Only formats where the effect clears our publish test appear here, so an empty row is a format we could not measure rather than one that does nothing.
| Format | This account | Catalog effect | 95% interval | Accounts behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image or video | 69% of posts | +111% | +108% to +115% | 34K |
| Outbound link | 61% of posts | -41% | -42% to -40% | 32K |
| Typical length | - | +15% | +14% to +16% | 32K |
- 69% of this account's sampled posts carry an image or video. Across the catalog, posts with an image or video run 111% above the same accounts' other posts.
- 61% of its posts carry a link off X. Across the catalog, posts with an outbound link run 41% below the same accounts' other posts, so a large share of this account's output sits in the weakest bucket we measure.
- Its average post runs 661 characters, which falls in the over 280 characters band. Across the catalog, posts over 280 characters run 15% above the same accounts' other posts.
These are catalog-wide differences applied to this account's own posting mix, not a measurement of how each format performs for this account specifically. We keep one median per account, not one per format per account, so the second thing is not something this data can tell you.
Best tweets
- Sep 22, 20269.9x their median
📡 Astronomers have detected radio signals coming directly from an exoplanet for the first time. No, it’s #notaliens. Using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, researchers detected repeating radio bursts from Beta Pictoris b, a young giant planet about 63 light-years away. The signals appear to come from auroras generated by the planet’s powerful magnetic field. The discovery could give astronomers a new way to study the magnetic fields of worlds beyond our solar system. The research is currently undergoing peer review. Read more from @ScienceAlert: https://t.co/nIxe5vlTuv #Exoplanets #Astronomy #RadioAstronomy #SpaceScience
- Aug 28, 20266.7x their median
#PPOD: A Bubbling Betelgeuse 🫧 This remarkably detailed view of #Betelgeuse, captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (@almaobs), reveals the uneven, bubbling surface of the famous red supergiant about 600 light-years away. Nearly 800 times larger than the Sun, Betelgeuse is covered by enormous regions of hot gas rising from deep within the star, creating the bright hotspots seen across its surface. One of those hotspots has presented astronomers with a mystery: it appears in observations taken seven years apart, far longer than current models predict such features should survive. Understanding these enormous structures could offer new clues about the behavior of massive stars as they approach the final stages of their lives—and, eventually, explode as supernovae. Credit: ALMA ( @ESO @prcnaoj_en @TheNRAO ) / W. Dent et al. #astronomy
- Sep 23, 20266.2x their median
#PPOD: The Telescope That Discovered Neptune 🔭 On September 23, 1846, astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle pointed this Fraunhofer refracting telescope toward a predicted location in the night sky and identified #Neptune, the eighth planet in our solar system. The discovery came after astronomers Urbain Le Verrier and John Couch Adams independently used irregularities in Uranus’s orbit to calculate where an unseen planet should be. Galle found Neptune less than one degree from Le Verrier’s predicted position, making its discovery a remarkable demonstration of Newtonian gravity and celestial mechanics. The nine-inch Fraunhofer refractor, built around 1826–1827 and considered one of the finest telescopes of its era, is now part of the Deutsches Museum collection in Munich. Credit: @DeutschesMuseum #planetaryscience
- Sep 24, 20266.1x their median
#PPOD: Roman Opens Its Eyes 👀 @NASARoman has opened its eyes to the universe. This test image captures the first photons of starlight to reach Roman’s Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera designed to survey enormous areas of the sky while preserving the sharp detail of a space telescope. The stars look like fuzzy rings because Roman isn’t focused yet. The detector array was still stowed in its launch position when the image was taken, giving engineers a baseline for aligning the telescope’s optics and tuning its focus. Initial tests confirm that the Wide Field Instrument is operating as expected, while Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument has also begun its checkout. The mission remains on track to release its first science images in early 2027. Credit: @NASAGoddard, Tyler Desjardins (@STScI) #astronomy
- Sep 5, 20265.7x their median
Is There Alien Debris on the Moon? Some Scientists Plan to Find Out. Researchers want to explore the idea that microscopic particles shed by alien civilizations have accumulated on the lunar surface, making it an archive of extraterrestrial technology. Learn more: https://t.co/0ENM75Sce7
- Aug 19, 20265.2x their median
#PPOD: @ESA Community Photo 📷️ The total #solareclipse on 12 August 2026 was captured by #yourESA community member Marina Prol in Galicia, Spain. The image shows the meadows of Espiñeira, Cospeito (Lugo), during totality. Credit: Marina Prol https://t.co/uwUMoLq7bI
- Sep 1, 20264.9x their median
#PPOD: A Kilometer Up on Mars 🔴 After 14 years on Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover has reached a new milestone: climbing a full kilometer (0.62 miles) in elevation since landing on the floor of Gale Crater. Curiosity captured this view looking back down the slopes of Mount Sharp from a broad valley nicknamed “Valle Grande.” Its tracks stretch into the distance, with the floor and northern rim of Gale Crater visible through the dusty Martian atmosphere. Curiosity has been climbing the 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) Mount Sharp since 2014, exploring rock layers that preserve evidence of Mars’ changing environment over billions of years. Credit: @NASA @NASAJPL @Caltech #MSSS #planetaryscience
- Aug 20, 20264.6x their median
#PPOD: Over Lugo, Spain 🌉 The August 12, 2026, total #solareclipse was photographed above the Roman Bridge of Lugo, Spain, and reflected in the Miño River. Taking this photo took three days of planning—scouting good spots in the city to capture a beautiful, representative shot. Photographer Antonio Rull brought two cameras and took 340 photos during the 84 seconds of totality. Credit: Antonio Rull #planetaryscience
- Sep 15, 20264.6x their median
🌎 One pixel. That's all a future telescope will see of a distant living world. To read it and to know whether it's alive, we need a reference. So MARBLE will study the one planet we already know is inhabited: ours. From lunar orbit, the spacecraft will watch Earth's entire visible face, then work out what it all collapses into when seen from light-years away. It will measure how light is organized when it reflects off our world, as life twists it in a way nothing else is known to. We're building the answer key, so that when we finally see that pixel around another star, we'll know what we're looking at. Give $100 or more, and we'll laser-etch your name onto a film carried aboard the spacecraft. All gifts are matched up to $50,000 through September 30. 🔗 #LaunchTheSearch at https://t.co/Rh6xdEWxbd #SETIInstitute #SearchForLife #SETI #SpaceExploration
- Sep 25, 20264.5x their median
#PPOD: Small Worlds in a Stellar Nursery ✨️ @NASAWebb peers into IC 348, a young star-forming region about 1,000 light-years from Earth, in one of the telescope’s largest images yet released. Amid the swirling clouds of gas and dust are young stars, newborn protostars, and a population of extraordinarily small brown dwarfs—objects that form like stars but never become massive enough to sustain hydrogen fusion in their cores. Using JWST’s NIRCam, astronomers identified brown dwarfs with only about twice Jupiter's mass, making them the least massive brown dwarfs known and challenging models of how such objects form. In the upper right, powerful jets from protostars slam into surrounding material, producing glowing Herbig-Haro objects and offering another glimpse of stellar birth in action. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, K. Luhman, C. Alves De Oliveira, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) #astronomy
Ranked by total interactions across everything we have tracked for this account, which is a longer history than the 30-day window the rates above use. The multiple compares each post to this account's own median.
Recurring topics
The most frequent hashtags in the sampled posts. They describe what this account writes about; they are not a performance signal, and the catalog-wide breakdown on the hub shows how little hashtag count moves.
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Reading these numbers
A typical post picks up 62 interactions against 680K followers, an engagement rate of 0.009%. Measured over 75 original posts, its engagement rate beats 32% of 21,185 tracked accounts of a similar size, which puts it in the middle of its size range rather than at either end. Posts are seen about 7.5K times each, and 0.825% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 1.11% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 2.7 posts a day over the last 30 days, with activity on almost every day in the window. Most posts go out around 15:00 UTC, and Thursday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 75 posts sampled, 69% carry an image or video and 61% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 611 interactions, about 9.9x its own typical post. Recurring topics include #ppod, #setilive, #mars.
- What is The SETI Institute's engagement rate on X?
- The SETI Institute (@SETIInstitute) has an engagement rate of 0.009%, based on the median interactions across 75 original posts from the last 30 days against 679,754 followers. Replies, reposts and quote-posts of other people are excluded from that sample.
- Is that a good engagement rate?
- At 0.009%, The SETI Institute sits above the 10th percentile of the 212,741 accounts in this comparison. Those comparison accounts are all large ones, because our scanning cadence is weighted towards big accounts, so this is a ranking among peers of similar scale rather than a ranking across X.
- Does @SETIInstitute have real engagement?
- Its engagement rate beats 32% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (21,185 accounts), which puts it in the middle of its size range group. Ranking inside a size band matters because engagement rate falls as accounts grow, so a raw rate would mostly re-measure the follower count. It is a starting point for a look at follower quality, not a verdict on it.
- When does @SETIInstitute post?
- Most posts go out around 15:00 UTC, and Thursday is its busiest day, at roughly 2.73 posts per day across the measured window.