• Question: are aliens real? Is there any scientific proof of them being real?

    Asked by josh to Eleni, Hannah, Jenny, Oli, Steven on 15 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by gb1, 726drug38.
    • Photo: Oliver Charity

      Oliver Charity answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Hi Josh,

      There is no scientiifc proof, but there are a few weird things that have been observed:

      In 1977 there was a random signal observed by the ‘search for extraterrestrial intelligence’ team (SETI) and it has never been explained, it could be a civilisation coming into existance and then dying off again. There is also a mysterious flickering of a star observed, which one person suggested could be a dyson sphere – a hypothetical huge machine that sucks the energy of a star and would have been made by an advanced civilization (athough there are other theories about this flickering star).

      Also, a mathematician called Drake formulated an equation to see what the probability was of other planets having life in the galaxy. He took the rate of star formation, the amount of stars, planet formation, the amount of planets, the amount of planets potentially harboring life, and the amount of time required for life to develop and suggested that there were between 1000 and 100,000,000 civilizations in the milky way. Thats quite a lot, although its never been proven, and there are many faults with his equation.

      Oli

    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Hi Josh,

      Good question! Yeah, as Oli said there’s no scientific proof…. but given the humongous amount of planets in the universe the chances of life only existing on our planet is pretty small.

      Stephen Hawking was recently telling us that we should possibly try to avoid contacting them if we are not alone. This is because any civilization capable of understanding our messages is likely to possess technology far greater than what we have. He says that alerting them to our presence could be catastrophic for our civilization. They could do to us what Europeans did to the poor native Americans when they discovered America!

      It’s quite an interesting article:
      https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/23/stephen-hawking-warns-against-seeking-out-aliens-in-new-film

      Steve

    • Photo: Jenny Batson

      Jenny Batson answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Hi Josh
      As Oli and Hannah said, there isn’t any evidence but statistically it is more likely that there is life somewhere else than not, even though it might be billions of light years away and could be anything weird like a slime or algae. Maybe one day we’ll find out…
      Jenny

    • Photo: Hannah Bolt

      Hannah Bolt answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Hi Josh,

      As far as I’m aware, there’s no proof of aliens. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there in the universe somewhere watching us!

      Space is so vast, with so many different galaxies I think there must be other planets out there which have conditions that could allow life could grow.

      The alternative theory is that we are all currently living in a computer simulation (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20160901-we-might-live-in-a-computer-program-but-it-may-not-matter) So maybe we’re the aliens!!!

      Hannah

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