Vulcans, Daleks, Martians, Grays – our culture is pervaded by alien beings from distant worlds – some benevolent…most not so much, observes the BBC: “In our galaxy alone, there should be tens of billions of planets harboring life, but we have not heard any broadcasts or seen any flashing lights from distant civilizations. Sixty years ago, the journal Nature published a paper suggesting the best way to search for alien life was by listening for radio signals. Within months, astronomer Frank Drake had begun scanning nearby star systems and SETI was born.”
Decades of research have led scientists to look deeply into the nature of life itself — what it is, how it began on Earth, and what other worlds might also support it. A shift in focus is now emerging as NASA scientists recognize that with a strategic push the possibility of detecting life beyond Earth could be on the horizon with the creation of new teams: Center for Life Detection Science, Network for Life Detection, Laboratory for Agnostic Biosignatures, and Oceans Across Space and Time.
If general principles exist that can explain properties common to all life on Earth, scientists hypothesize, then they may be universal to all life, even life on other planets. If a “universal biology” exists, it would have important implications for the search for life beyond Earth, for engineering synthetic life in the lab, and for solving the origin of life, enabling scientists to predict properties of alien life. (more…)
Since publishing a highly controversial paper on the recent interstellar visitor to our solar system, writes Avi Selk in the Washington Post, Abraham Loeb, head of Harvard’s astronomy department, “has run a nearly nonstop media circuit, embracing the celebrity that comes from being perhaps the most academically distinguished alien civilization enthusiast of his time — the top Harvard astronomer who suspects technology from another solar system just showed up at our door. And this, in turn, continues has left some of his peers nonplused — grumbling at what they see as a flimsy theory or bewildered as to why Harvard’s top astronomer won’t shut up about aliens.”
The “Planet Earth Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.
The “Planet Earth Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.
