First Contact Scenarios – Confusion

Imagine that an intelligent alien species has discovered us, and that they have the ability to journey to Earth to make first contact.

It may sound like a fantastical scenario better suited to fiction than to science, and for more than two centuries this has largely been the case, but over the last few years a number of scientists have begun to debate first contact scenarios, both in scholarly domains and in the mass media.

What do you think first contact would be like?

I’ve had a few ideas of my own, inspired heavily by sci-fi I admit, and in previous posts I’ve looked at scenarios in which the aliens may not even be interested in us, or that they may make first contact with us, but covertly. In this post I’ll look at the idea that they do try to make an overt first contact, but that we may have a mutual problem in understanding each other.

Goldilocks, and other Habitable Zones for Life

Heard of the Goldilocks zone?

It’s the idea that an area of space around a star will be at the right temperature for life to exist. Not too hot, not too cold, hence Goldilocks.

It’s a bit like standing around a campfire on a very cold night. Stand too far away and you freeze, stand too close and you catch on fire and burn to death.

It’s the same with planets orbiting stars too, if they’re too far away then water freezes and life can’t emerge, and if they orbit too close the planet is roasting hot and nothing can live.

It gets a bit more complex than this though, but complex in a fun way. Oh and its also got some pretty big implications for the search for extraterrestrial life…

First Contact Scenarios – Indifference

I’m planning on writing a series of posts on different scenarios for first contact with intelligent alien life. I’ve been inspired by some insightful comments from this post and have taken lots of my ideas from those who commented there. Thanks everyone who commented.

It’s feels as though this topic has been treated as a fanciful distraction by much of the serious scientific community until quite recently, and has very much been delegated to science fiction authors, fringe scientists and assorted lunatics. But as of late some big-name scientists have joined in the fun, and this topic is gaining an air of credibility. This isn’t to say that science fiction hasn’t made contributions to this field; I think Sci-Fi has provided some intelligent and very creative first contact scenarios and much of what I’ll be writing has been inspired or explored by Sci-Fi.

So lets assume that intelligent alien life exists, that its discovered humanity, and that it has the technology to communicate with us, either face-to-face or using an alternative method.

The first of my proposed scenarios is that the aliens will be totally indifferent.

Life in our Solar System – Earth

In previous posts I’ve looked at some likely, and some less likely, candidates for planets or moons in our solar system that could harbour life, including Jupiter, three of it’s moons, two of Saturn’s moons, and Mars and Venus.

Now its time for Earth. Yep, you read right.

In 1990 NASA used the Galileo spacecraft to look for life on Earth. Why bother you scream, whilst hurling your cup of tea violently against the wall? Well, NASA did it to test how well spacecraft like Galileo can find life on planets and moons from space. Call it a proof of concept, if NASA can find life on Earth, then at least they know the tech works, and hopefully won’t miss signs of life on other planets.

Here’s what they found on Earth:

The Equation of Nonsense

I’ve always been fascinated by why people believe weird things, particularly the totally illogical ones. I delved into this world when I researched my 2012 blog posts, and there seemed to be a pattern behind a lot of the crazy beliefs, particularly in the way they’re constructed.

Based on this I’ve made my own equation for nonsense. I’ve seen that the more successful illogical beliefs tend to have a number of common features, and the more of these features they can fit into one crazy story, the more people will believe the story and defend it passionately.

I’ve tried to capture this in my equation (don’t get excited, there isn’t any maths), and I’ve used it to make my own insane myth.

Nick Bostrom on the Fermi Paradox

The Fermi Paradox is an idea that complements the Drake Equation. Enrico Fermi asked the question, if there are so many stars in our Galaxy, and therefore probably many Earth-like planets, then there should be lots of alien civilizations in the Milky Way, but why haven’t we found evidence of them? Why not?

Nick Bostrom talks about the Fermi paradox, and some possible solutions, in the video below. It’s not as smooth as the Carl Sagan clip I just posted, but he has some interesting ideas. Nick Bostrom is a philosopher from Oxford University, and has some interesting ideas on human enhancement, the survivability of advanced civilizations and the nature of reality by the way, his website is full of interesting stuff.

What do you think is the answer? Are we alone? Is there alien life in our Galaxy, but just simple life? Or are advanced alien civilizations doomed to wipe themselves out as they become more technologically advanced?

If you like to read more about the Fermi Paradox, I’ve written a short post here, and a couple of posts on possible solutions here and here.

Panspermia: did life on Earth come from space? – Part 4, in films, TV & books

Panspermia is the idea that life could travel between stars seeding habitable planets as it passed, a bit like a galactic infection.

In previous posts I looked at the traditional bacterial view of panspermia, then some more extreme views, such as  aliens deliberately seeding the Earth with life, and I looked at a recent claim from a NASA scientist that he had found evidence for panspermia, in the form of fossilized bacteria in three meteorites.

In the final post of this series I’ll take a more light-hearted approach, and look at some of the best panspermia ideas in films, TV and books.

Panspermia: did life on Earth come from space? – Part 3, Richard Hoover & cyanobacteria from space

In two previous posts I’ve looked at different versions of panspermia, the idea that life may have originated elsewhere in our Galaxy and may have travelled to our planet early in its formation, giving rise to all of the life we see on Earth today.

In post 1 I introduced the idea, and looked at how simple bacterial life could travel to the Earth, and in post 2 I looked at some more extreme versions of panspermia, including the idea that intelligent aliens could have deliberately seeded the Earth with life.

You may have also seen in the news recently that a NASA scientist called Richard Hoover has claimed he has found fossilized bacteria in a number of meteorites.

What does this mean for panspermia? Unfortunately, probably not much. Find out why…

Panspermia: did life on Earth come from space? – Part 1

Panspermia huh? Sounds a bit unsavoury doesn’t it? Suspiciously like something you’d find on the internet; not on a science blog.

It’s actually the idea that life on Earth could have come from elsewhere in our galaxy, that life may have travelled through space originating from a different planet, and when it reached ours it flourished and evolved into all the different forms we see today. So we may actually all be aliens. Great idea huh? Pretty awful name though.

Sperm actually means ‘seed’ and pan means ‘all’ so panspermia means all-seed, OK that doesn’t really help, I’m not sure who first coined the term but they certainly didn’t have a flair for marketing. Anyway, how likely actually is it?

In this first post I’ll examine the ‘traditional view’ of panspermia, including some evidence, and in the next post I’ll look at some more extreme versions of panspermia, such as the idea that intelligent aliens deliberately seeded the galaxy with life.

The inspiration for these posts came from commenter hartm242 who gave me the idea of writing about panspermia in the requests section of this blog. You should definitely check out his excellent blog too, it’s about exploring alternative forms of life on planets unlike our own, and he’s created a hypothetical alien planet with its own biosphere.

Advanced alien civilizations, have we already found some?

Lots of scientists think our Galaxy should be full of advanced alien civilizations (see the Drake Equation and Fermi Paradox posts). But when they’ve looked the Galaxy appears to be quiet and lonely. Where are all the alien civilizations they ask?

Many insane people would of course argue with this, pointing out that aliens have visited us; that they created the pyramids, Atlantis and humankind itself. That they regularly abduct and probe drunk Americans, that the government knows and is covering it up, and that the government itself may even by aliens, alien communists, sent here to steal freedom from God-loving Americans. But then they’re insane. None of this is true.

In a previous post I argued that alien life might be common, but that simple life rarely evolves into intelligent life, and that even if it does, intelligent life may not exist for very long. However I may be wrong, I’m wrong about things all the time, especially as some astronomers may have discovered evidence for vast alien structures in space, I shit you not.