Pop culture in recent years has given the world a lot of images related to the appearance of aliens, as well as realistic scenarios of interaction with them. According to personal observations, guests from other worlds usually ruthlessly deal with the locals in order to conquer the planet and start using it for any of their purposes. As it turns out, not only Hollywood screenwriters are thinking about potential encounters with aliens, but also quite serious scientists and organizations.
Aliens are highly likely to exist
NASA has been trying for several years to find out if aliens really exist. It is curious that humanity has not yet discovered life on any other planet and has not found at least some scientifically substantiated confirmation of its existence. Apparently, it’s time to switch from relatively large extraterrestrial organisms to microscopic ones. Actually, including for this purpose, NASA sends one mission after another to Mars and carefully analyzes the soil of the Red Planet. However, the study of this world has just begun, and there are a lot of heavenly bodies, on which life can potentially be, in the solar system alone.
“The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, it seems like a terrible waste of space. ”- Carl Sagan, prominent American astrophysicist.
In the outer solar system, there are icy moons such as Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa, which seem very promising in terms of life. Moreover, the more exoplanets (those that are outside the solar system) scientists put on space maps, the higher the confidence that we are definitely not alone in the Universe. In a word, although there is no official confirmation yet, scientists have no doubt that aliens exist.
Aliens can live below the surface of planets
Data from the Kepler telescope, which NASA actively uses to study space, confirms that every fifth star similar to the Sun includes a planet similar to the Earth in its system. It must be located in an area suitable for habitation, and have the necessary structure for this. In 2013, NASA experts discovered 715 new potentially livable worlds. Many of these are verified using a technique called multiplicity checking. It works in part on the logic of probability – objects that cross the face of a star or pull it gravitationally are more likely to be planets rather than companion stars. And many of them have every chance of spawning life – at least in the underground seas and oceans below the surface.
Aliens can be like humans
Simon Conway Morris, an evolutionary biologist from Cambridge, notes the extreme likelihood that intelligent alien life could be similar to human life. In his “Runes of Evolution” he noted that development on any planet can move along approximately the same path, therefore, living organisms in different worlds can form approximately the same.
“What we consider to be the most important: cognitive complexity, big brains, intelligence, making tools of labor – they all have to coincide,” – Morris noted in one of his many interviews.
The scientist is confident that even outside the solar system – in worlds where protein life can form – evolution will move according to a similar scenario as on Earth. Therefore, in the history of the next world, there will certainly be humanoid organisms – at least, it is very likely.
Aliens probably won’t come to Earth on their own
In popular culture, aliens come to Earth from a spaceship. However, scientists dispute this idea. For example, SETI astronomer Seth Shostak notes that space travel is a very long and long journey with huge investments. Therefore, in the event that aliens do want to contact the Earth, they, apparently, will first send robots here.
“It doesn’t look like the hatch will open and we’ll see an unusual alien paw pop out. Most likely, it will be a robotic arm, ”Shostak noted in one of his interviews.
Moreover, it is likely that the aliens that make it to Earth on an exploration or any other mission will be machines in themselves. Steven J. Dick suspects that visitors from other worlds will be postbiological organisms with advanced artificial intelligence.
“Due to the limitations of biology and the human mind, cultural evolution will ultimately lead to methods for improving intelligence that transcend these biological limits. Silicon-based creatures are more likely to participate in space travel with robust life support systems and virtual immortality, ”Shostak has no doubts about it.
Scientists suggest that those organisms that survive the journey through the galaxies will be our evolutionary development from the distant future. To see your own kind, you first have to develop well, and then get out on your own to explore distant worlds.
Aliens are unlikely to come to us in peace
“If aliens ever visit us, I think the result will be the same as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which did not turn out very well for Native Americans,” Stephen Hawking said in an interview.
Moreover, the well-known scientist has repeatedly emphasized that the messages that humanity sends into space can be read by a much more developed civilization. In this case, she can perceive humanity as a conditional species of bacteria that is not of particular value. But Shostak stressed that guests from other worlds may well come for themselves and for resources that may be limited anywhere in the Universe. In this case, nothing good should be expected either.
Aliens can bring new diseases to us
Pathogenic bacteria from other worlds can also be extremely dangerous. It is likely that they will be able to create a pandemic of unprecedented proportions that will destroy humanity as a species.
“While there should be no resemblance between a warm, humid human body and a cold, dry Martian environment, there certainly could be environments on Earth in which life from Mars could thrive if brought here by a probe or a human mission.” noted astrobiologist David Warmflash.
- To this topic: Why it is categorically impossible to bring microbes to Mars from Earth and how is it monitored
The behavior of aliens cannot be predicted
If no one fully understands exactly what extraterrestrial life might look like, in what form it will arrive on Earth, and what motives it will be guided by, it is unclear how such guests will behave.
“It would be like meeting people with trilobites, because aliens may be billions of years more advanced than we are. They can be aggressive because aggression is welcome in the Darwinian system, but they can also be peaceful. Nobody knows, ”Shostak also noted.
It is possible that aliens could evolve in the same way as humans. In this case, they will be capable of both aggression and peaceful compromise. However, if we assume that evolution is based on the survival of the fittest, we have good reason to believe that aggressive instincts among aliens will be present in abundance.
“To what extent alien life can curb its aggressive instincts is anyone’s guess,” noted astrobiologist Pushkar Ganesh Vaidya.
Sources: Vox Creative, NASA, Space.
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