Long Distance – To The Universe
All one has to do is look up at a night sky, filled with a billion stars to realize that there must be someone else out there. Put aside all the alleged UFO sightings, NASA missions and movies, and it will become clear. Out of the billion celestial bodies in the universe around us, could Earth be the one place that life could exist?
Generations of people through multiple generations and cultures have pondered this question – are we alone here on Earth? There are places here on our own world where life as we know it should NOT exist. Lake Vostok, under 4000 meters of Antarctic ice, is a freshwater lake where bacteria thrive. Geothermal vents deep in the oceans where daylight cannot penetrate, and crushing pressures would surely kill anything teem with life. Even in these hostile environments, life not only finds a way, but flourishes. Why then, can we not believe that there may be planets orbiting stars like our sun that provide the right conditions for beings like or unlike ourselves? If you take inventory of the Milky Way galaxy alone, you will quickly see that the solar system is but a spec on the whole scheme of things. New observations using new technology reveal planets around other stars in our locale on almost a daily basis. One of these has even had an atmosphere detected around it…
It is a common saying that people never look UP. We wander around worrying about our mortgage payment, our stresses at our job, what to have for dinner… The discoveries in recent years by NASA missions to other planets in our solar system should be enough to convince even a skeptic that there are possible environment, even hostile, which could harbor life. Some of the key elements are there, and perhaps only microbes inhabit these places, but it is still alive…
We may mostly think of extraterrestrials as ‘little green men’, but the truth is that life is most likely abundant throughout the universe. Many extrasolar planets may be the right size, composition, and distance from their star to be a cradle of life. There may be civilizations out there waiting to be discovered. Perhaps the visions in movies of George Lucas and Steven Speilberg are not that far-fetched after all.
If life is suddenly discovered on Mars or elsewhere, the changes to our world will definitely be profound, and perhaps then… People will look UP.
