Extraterrestrial Life Search

Throughout the 21st Century, the existence of extraterrestrial life has become a widely explored topic in science fiction movies, books, and magazines. In more recent years however, NASA has developed a division of space exploration that is especially dedicated to discovering and protecting Earth from any extraterrestrial life that may have negative effects on our planets’ inhabitants. This division of the NASA organization raises questions for the average civilian: does alien life exist, and if so, when and how will we discover it? The human race must begin to consider and accept the existence of extraterrestrial life due to the fact that:

Throughout history humanity has been fascinated by the existence of extraterrestrial life. Today such ventures are in the development process and the discovery of life beyond our solar system, no matter how primitive, may soon become a huge(important?) scientific breakthrough. The three basic things that are required to consider a place even remotely habitable are water, a source of energy, and organic materials. Habitability also depends on other factors that must also be taken into consideration such as how close the planet is to its star (in the case of our solar system, the sun), how long the water and organic materials existed there, and the size and mass of the planet. One must not confuse habitable with inhabited. The term

Aliens and life beyond earth has been a mystery for a long time. Many people and scientist have been looking for life outside of Earth, or just floating in the sky trying to get video of it. For all of human history we have been looking for extraterrestrial life, and these are the major events of finding, debunking, and moving forward to life on earth

James Green discusses in his speech the possibility of there being life beyond earth. Green starts off with a quote that is used in a lot of movies, books and television shows, “Is there life beyond earth in our solar system?” He follows this initial quote with one by Carl Sagan, an American astronomer, “It takes extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.” It is important for Green to use these two quotes as attention getters. He hooks the listener with his works and we begin to think if there really is life in our solar system then just on earth.

Korff also states, “In what is now known as the ‘the Roswell incident,’ the U.S. military is said to have quickly covered up the affair and continues to shroud it in extreme secrecy even today.”

According to Wikipedia, extraterrestrial life as a term is originated from the Latin words extra that means beyond or not of and terrestris that means something of or belonging to Earth and it is defined as life that does not originate from Earth. It is often also referred to as alien life, or simply aliens. This hypothetical form of life is said to vary from simple bacteria-like organisms to beings far more complex than humans. That kind of alien life has been hypothesized to exist in the Solar System and throughout the universe and this hypothesis can be based on the vast size of the universe. According to this argument made by scientists, it would be inconceivable and egoistical to believe

Exobiology is the science that is concerned with the search for life in outer space; it may be called as astrobiology as well. The search for life in outer space has consumed the imagination of the humankind for long time ago. Nowadays, humankind has made a progress and found major discoveries in the quest for life existence in the universe and outer space because of the advancement of the technology. However, in the past, exobiology was considered as a science without a subject, where the people and other scientists laughed at and ridiculed the famous scientist and biologist Joshua Lederberg when he originated the term exobiology. Some people argue that life exists elsewhere in the universe, however, others believe that life only exist on Earth. A new study reveals that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has 100 billion or so stars, where 17 billion of them are Earth-size alien planets, and probably many more. The huge size of the galaxy increases the probability of life existence in the outer space. Are we alone in the universe? This question has captured the imaginations of scientist, theologians, and astrobiologists. However, they don’t know the answer yet. Understanding the complete definition of life and how life originated, and determining the techniques used for searching for life existence in outer space and evidences found can help to answer the question of “Are we alone in the universe?”

Extraterrestrial life has been a big topic for Americans since day one. According to author Lee Speigel there is an estimation of 48 percent of Americans throughout the nation that believe in life on other planets while only 35 percent reject the idea. Life on other planets exists. According to the article “Aliens among Us” by Paul, David extraterrestrial evidence has already been discovered such as different types of bacteria and even water. The article “Aliens among Us” is a credible source because it has many explanations and possibilities on how life on other planets can easily be real. Extraterrestrial life can be many things such as plants or living bacteria. Astronomers have proven that there is water in other planets such as Mars. Water contains different types of bacteria and cells, water in other planets can be one of our best piece of evidence that we can prove that there is life on other planets. There has been UFO’s crashes that have been recorded such as in Roswell, New Mexico 1947 but the government took all the evidence and it’s probably in Area 51. Although there is no hard evidence that proves aliens are real, NASA has announced that they will be able to find living creatures by the year 2025.

Most astronomers and scientists seem firmly convinced of this fact. Although there is not any direct (or even indirect) evidence to support these claims that other sentient life is sharing the universe with us. However, this lack of evidence showing that extraterrestrial life forms exist is not proof that they do not exist. It just does not seem logical that our planet is the only place where life and intelligence could have developed. The odds are billions against life of some form being unique to the Earth only. The Earth is unimportant in the grand scale of things in the galaxy. By this I am referring to its' size and position in the universe. In fact, the American Association for the Advancement of Science suggests that the true question that we should be

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence(SETI) has been searching for life for more than fifty years and have yet to find anything (Waldrop 442). SETI has ran on $2.5 million annual costs from powerful telescopes to hundreds of dishes worldwide and have managed to find no signs of other life forms (Waldrop 444). The search of life outside of Earth remains to be unanswered and now many ask, where are they? Through SETI’s large budget and expensive equipment the possibility of life on other planets becomes very slim. However, the lack of evidence for any possible forms of life does not justify the possibility of life forming in other unobservable places. The possibilities of life formation in other solar systems can be countless. In “Where Are They?,” Nick Bostrom states that there are over 100 billion galaxies in what we can observe of the universe and our galaxy alone has 100 billion stars (Bostrom 2). This alone provides the reason to believe that somewhere in our observable universe there are many planets with similar conditions and probability of life forming. It took Earth approximately 3.5 billion years to allow life to form that started with single celled prokaryotes to humans (Bostrom 3). The prokaryotes only formed after earth provided an ideal state in which life could be formed. It is also known that many of the galaxies contain stars and planets much older than ours (Bostrom 2). This gives endless amounts of time frames in which life of began in galaxies far way or nearby. The points of evolution become countless within each galaxy, yet the visibility of technological life civilizations like ours is nowhere to be seen. This means there is something preventing these civilizations from passing our current level of civilization. This known as the Great Filter, a theory, in which specific steps are prevented in the timeline of the evolution of

Understanding the heavens has been a continual mystery to humans. Throughout human history, individuals have been curious about life other than on planet Earth. The question that remains is if humanity is alone in the universe. This question is very important because after all, the universe is still expanding. In addition to the expansion of the universe, astronomers have discovered at least six potential habitable worlds in our own solar system (CITE). It is natural to wonder if other worlds might also have intelligent life and civilizations. Many claims have been made that we have already been visited by aliens in UFOs, however, while plenty of evidence has been offered for scientific examination so far none of it has been enough to convince us that the claims of visitations are real (Bennett, 260). However, this doesn’t mean that there is no intelligent life beyond our home planet. Due to this, taxpayers should fund programs to begin the search for extra-terrestrial life in the universe. The reason why there should be programs that fund the search for extra-terrestrial life in the universe is because extra-terrestrial life can help enhance our understanding of the universe.

There has been a lot of commotion lately between both the scientific and religious communities in regards to this topic. The claims of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life visiting the Earth in ancient times and profoundly affecting the development of Human civilization, is a controversial subject, at best.

The argument suggesting life existing on other Earth-like planets has been present since man first looked into space and questioned his own existence and the existence of others like him. Today there are many theories on the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but only one theory goes beyond them and into an even larger realm. The contents of this theory, known as the “multiverse” theory, suggest that humans on Earth live within one universe of many others that reside within a primordial vacuum containing many other universes (Jenkins and Perez). Each of these universes possesses potentially different natural constants and physical laws that govern them differently, thus calling forth some logical questions. First,

In reality, many scientists were skeptical of both UFOs and of alien life in general; they contended that interstellar travel would be easy for advanced civilizations, so the lack of overt contact disproved alien existence. Yet most UFO opponents do believe alien life exists out in the universe, just not here. So they defend the near impossibility of interstellar travel, which contradicts a considerable portion of the scientific community (Thompson, 1990).

DISCUSS THE CURRENT METHODS USED TO SEARCH FOR EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE, SUCH AS RADIOTELESCOPES AND SPACE PROBES. GIVE YOUR OPINION ON HOW LIKELY IT IS THAT LIFE WILL BE DISCOVERED AND GIVE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT YOUR ANSWER.