Hello? Anyone out there?
This is a question that has been boggling the minds of many ever since we found out that there were more planets than our own in the solar system. When we found out that there were more solar systems with more planets the question got even more intense. I’m going out on a limb here and say “yes”. There is life elsewhere in the Universe – after all there’s plenty of room for their to be more lifeforms than the ones found here on our home planet.
Now that I’ve established that I’m going to explain why we many never meet them:
1. Distance. Currently we are bound by the fact that no manned craft has ever made it outside of the orbit of the moon. Just trying to get to Mars (which I’m pretty sure is uninhabited) is driving many scientists crazy – that, and they can never seem to get the financial backing to even test out methods to get there. We’re probably not going to leave our own solar system this century and of course, we’re still stuck with this speed limit of about 299,792.458 Km/Second to determine how fast we can go. Sure, that seems pretty fast in terms of our own system, but in terms of how far the closest star is that’s a bit boggling – and then there’s that whole time dilation thing that happens as you get closer to the speed of light.
2. Compatibility. Okay, let’s assume for a second that the other lifeforms are somehow able to overcome our travel problems and they decide to come and visit us. Something tells me that any life that’s out there didn’t develop into the exact same form as us. We always assume from Tv shows that all life in the Universe stands as tall as us, has two arms, two legs, and a plastic prosthetic forehead – and of course, they all breathe the same air as us. It’s safe to assume that any life that’s out there is used to worlds that are much hotter or colder than our own. They probably are not carbon based and might not even be bound to the same physical laws that we are.
3. Why would they even want to talk to us in the first place? I’m pretty sure that if some kind of life from another world were able to receive (and translate!) any of our transmissions they would see a petty little race that spends more time killing each other than any other activity (with the possible exception of downloading naked images of each other). Most movies we’ve made about contact with aliens usually involves misunderstanding and trying to kill them (“The Day the Earth Stood Still”, “Plan 9 From Outer Space”, “E.T.”), or portray aliens as bad guys out to do horrible things to the Earth’s inhabitants (“War of the Worlds”, “Independence Day”, “Earth Girls Are Easy”).
Sure, there’s life out there, but I’m not expecting any of them to walk up to me any time soon and ask me to take them to their leader – although, it would be nice to introduce them to my wife.
