It is a tantalising or frightening thought that somewhere out in space, there are alien civilisations as advanced as us or vastly more advanced. Meeting them could mean that they might be able to reveal the secret of travelling faster than light, warping space and curing all of our deadly diseases. We could even be invited to join some galactic family.
Well, that is part of the science fiction covered. Of course, there is another side to science fiction. An advanced alien civilisation may view us as we might view insects and literally crush us without a second’s thought.
But there is a very serious side to all this. Although we might not be around to witness a “First Contact”, we should at least make some preparations if it should ever happen. We should ask the question, “What are the chances that we are alone in the Universe?” Let us try to answer that question using the figures we currently have.
If we first consider our own galaxy, the Milky Way, it consists of around 100 billion stars. Recent evidence suggests that every star may have planetary bodies in orbit around it, similar to our own solar system. With new space telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST for short, we have discovered thousands of exoplanets,
If we now broaden our search, we believe there are around 2 billion other galaxies in the observable universe. If every star had only one planet in orbit, we have 8 in our solar system, then the total number of planets would be a staggering 20 billion trillion. Big numbers, huh?
No matter how life began on our planet several billion years ago, can we honestly say that we are the only ones in the whole universe? Personally, I think it is a no-brainer. In the next two articles, we will explore where life might exist quite close to us and in the third article, life on the exoplanets.
John Pullen 