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Is There Anybody Out There?
Is there anybody out there?
This question was posed in an article by Rebecca Boyle. She described the galaxy as ‘teeming with life and I agree. Because what if there is life, beings and species unknown to us? Have we come into contact with said beings? Possibly, yes. Or is our planet like that one person in a friend group, left out of the joke, stuck wondering: what are they talking about? Perhaps this is where our curiosity and anxiety stems from. Our desire to know what lies beyond the one thing we’ve always seen but never experienced: space. It’s name is it’s very description. And it’s such a phenomenon that there’s an entire study about it. o, it’s not spaceology. Astronomy is the study of everything in the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere— the definition given by he American Museum of Natural History. Astrobiology, however, is the study of the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe. Also known to children as ‘Alienology’.
Referring back to Rebecca Boyle’s article, do we really want to know if aliens are out there? Our very way of life will be altered just by knowing about any form of extra-terrestrial life. In order to know hwy alien haven’t visited Earth, we should go back to the beginning. Not the literal beginning of our planet, rather 1958, the year NASA was established. As you may know, NASA specialises in space research, astronomy, astrobiology, etc. In Marc Kaufman’s article about Astrobiology, he mentions a man named Joshua Lederberg, a molecular biologist-turned-exobiologist. Lederberg had been looking for possibilities of finding ‘life beyond Earth’. This was before the official establishment of NASA. Although he won a Nobel prize at 33, his reaching and out questioning was slightly over-shadowed by NASA’s 1960s efforts to land humans on the moon. There were still efforts to prepare for a mission to Mars with the core goal of finding any signature of life on Mars. Life on mars opened a ‘pandora’s box’ of questions about nw life and life on earth. The topic had reached such a fever pitch that NASA landed the Viking on Mars in 1976. Nothing of interest, other than a desolate and barren Martian Landscape, was found and so the study of Mars was put in into NASA’s back pocket. I want to talk about Carl Sagan here because he is a well-known figure for his research and contributions to the Astronomy department. His first answer about what stars are, he received from a library at the age of 7; stars are suns, only very far awa and the sun is a star, but close up. Ironically, 2 of his 4 mentors were geneticists Hermann Muller and Joshua Lederberg. These two were clearly good mentors along with the others seeing how Lederberg’s contribution to the search of life was so huge.
When at Cornell, Sagan was able to conduct a series of experiments about atmospheric and surface chemistry for moons, planets and comets. In this article, Steven Soter (the author), question about intelligent life and possible advanced civilisations. To answer his question we could look a little closer to home. 7th April 1991, a triangular air craft was spotted hovering in the air with a central red light and white star-like lights on each extremity. This alleged UFO was spotted by a family at Baviaanspoort, Pretoria. 8th May 2000, a police inspector claimed to have seen an approaching UFO while travelling the N3 Freeway. He described it as an oval-shaped light, fitted with 2 cupolas and was wide enough to cover 4 lanes of the freeway. If these really were aliens, then why haven’t they visited us? Since the dawn of humanity, technology has been the ever-present component in helping us evolve. With globalisation, increased competition and changing consumer behaviour, I could understand why an alien would never visit Earth. It’s filled with humans judging each other due to their own insecurities, the rise of hate and discrimination, the threat of possible war, and us killing ours selves for the sake of money. It seems as thoug the search for new life is to escape the very on we know. The harsh reality we’ve created for ourselves.
From an alien’s perspective, the prospect of another planet, flourishing with life, is scary yet enticing. So, perhaps the aliens are there, floating around our planet, thinking of ways you engage with us. Much like a nervous couple on a first date. There is one other answer though. Whyy haven’t they visited, communicated, or even texted? Are they waiting for us to text first? To spam them with countless messages, desperate for some form of communication? Just why haven’t they visited earth?
It’s simple.
They’re already here.
© All rights reserved
This question was posed in an article by Rebecca Boyle. She described the galaxy as ‘teeming with life and I agree. Because what if there is life, beings and species unknown to us? Have we come into contact with said beings? Possibly, yes. Or is our planet like that one person in a friend group, left out of the joke, stuck wondering: what are they talking about? Perhaps this is where our curiosity and anxiety stems from. Our desire to know what lies beyond the one thing we’ve always seen but never experienced: space. It’s name is it’s very description. And it’s such a phenomenon that there’s an entire study about it. o, it’s not spaceology. Astronomy is the study of everything in the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere— the definition given by he American Museum of Natural History. Astrobiology, however, is the study of the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe. Also known to children as ‘Alienology’.
Referring back to Rebecca Boyle’s article, do we really want to know if aliens are out there? Our very way of life will be altered just by knowing about any form of extra-terrestrial life. In order to know hwy alien haven’t visited Earth, we should go back to the beginning. Not the literal beginning of our planet, rather 1958, the year NASA was established. As you may know, NASA specialises in space research, astronomy, astrobiology, etc. In Marc Kaufman’s article about Astrobiology, he mentions a man named Joshua Lederberg, a molecular biologist-turned-exobiologist. Lederberg had been looking for possibilities of finding ‘life beyond Earth’. This was before the official establishment of NASA. Although he won a Nobel prize at 33, his reaching and out questioning was slightly over-shadowed by NASA’s 1960s efforts to land humans on the moon. There were still efforts to prepare for a mission to Mars with the core goal of finding any signature of life on Mars. Life on mars opened a ‘pandora’s box’ of questions about nw life and life on earth. The topic had reached such a fever pitch that NASA landed the Viking on Mars in 1976. Nothing of interest, other than a desolate and barren Martian Landscape, was found and so the study of Mars was put in into NASA’s back pocket. I want to talk about Carl Sagan here because he is a well-known figure for his research and contributions to the Astronomy department. His first answer about what stars are, he received from a library at the age of 7; stars are suns, only very far awa and the sun is a star, but close up. Ironically, 2 of his 4 mentors were geneticists Hermann Muller and Joshua Lederberg. These two were clearly good mentors along with the others seeing how Lederberg’s contribution to the search of life was so huge.
When at Cornell, Sagan was able to conduct a series of experiments about atmospheric and surface chemistry for moons, planets and comets. In this article, Steven Soter (the author), question about intelligent life and possible advanced civilisations. To answer his question we could look a little closer to home. 7th April 1991, a triangular air craft was spotted hovering in the air with a central red light and white star-like lights on each extremity. This alleged UFO was spotted by a family at Baviaanspoort, Pretoria. 8th May 2000, a police inspector claimed to have seen an approaching UFO while travelling the N3 Freeway. He described it as an oval-shaped light, fitted with 2 cupolas and was wide enough to cover 4 lanes of the freeway. If these really were aliens, then why haven’t they visited us? Since the dawn of humanity, technology has been the ever-present component in helping us evolve. With globalisation, increased competition and changing consumer behaviour, I could understand why an alien would never visit Earth. It’s filled with humans judging each other due to their own insecurities, the rise of hate and discrimination, the threat of possible war, and us killing ours selves for the sake of money. It seems as thoug the search for new life is to escape the very on we know. The harsh reality we’ve created for ourselves.
From an alien’s perspective, the prospect of another planet, flourishing with life, is scary yet enticing. So, perhaps the aliens are there, floating around our planet, thinking of ways you engage with us. Much like a nervous couple on a first date. There is one other answer though. Whyy haven’t they visited, communicated, or even texted? Are they waiting for us to text first? To spam them with countless messages, desperate for some form of communication? Just why haven’t they visited earth?
It’s simple.
They’re already here.
© All rights reserved
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