Alien life beyond our solar system could be discovered within the next 40 years, a top British astronomer has said.
According to Lord Martin Rees, the president of the Royal Society of London, developments in astronomy mean that astrophysicists could be able to view images of distant planets outside of our solar system as soon as 2025, and potentially discover whether there is some form of life on them, the Daily Mail reported.
The question of whether earth is alone in supporting living organisms has puzzled scientists, philosophers for centuries.
“We know now that stars are orbited by retinues of planets just as our sun is. We have learned this in just the last decade, essentially,” Rees said.
“Within 10 or 20 years we will be able to image other planets like the earth, orbiting other stars. That will be a really exciting subject to see if there is evidence for [extra-terrestrial] life or not,” Rees was quoted as saying by the paper.
Speaking at a debate on the meaning of life for the launch of Professor Stephen Hawking’s new show Grand Design, he added that finding out more about the “origin of life, the place where it exists, and whether aliens exist, is going to be crucial over the next four decades”.
“There may be some questions that our brains will never understand, in the same way that chimpanzees couldn’t understand quantum theory, that are just beyond human brains,” Rees added.
Last year Lord Rees said it was possible that aliens were “staring us in the face” in a form humans are unable to recognise.
“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive,” he added.
PTI
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
When this happens it will be a paradign shift in our society, long held cultural, religious beliefs and a lot of political dogma will go down the toilet where it belongs.
I don’t see why, nothing in the Bible and most religious texts deny the existence of aliens. You confuse the lack of mentioning them as denial of existence. Sorry… You’ll be stuck with those religions a long time, and probably get some crazy new ones pop up.
And when it doesn’t happen long held scientific and philosophical beliefs will be drug back out of the toilet, given another three or four coats of lacquer, and trotted out as the ‘Latest and most advanced thinking in the scientific community’, and the eons long search by man to find some way around God will go on.
—- A thought experiment —
http://thelastminstrel.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/evolution-the-work-that-doesnt/
wishful thinking on your part.
John is absolutely correct. Scientific proof of alien life will crumble all our obsolete stone age beliefs and reset our minds in a new technological space age. Still – the old universal archetypes and patterns of thought will still be there so I have no doubt future generations will be worshipping alien gods and reading alien texts with the same reverence as the Bible and Koran.
Jonathan – the number one piece of “evidence” that Christians – Jews – Muslims give against Evolution is that the Bible doesn’t mention (or reveal) it. Therfore it is not true. There’s no mention of alien civilizations either – unless you want to interchange the term alien/demon with aliens. But most Christians wouldn’t even consider it.
It is easy for ‘modern man’ to fall into the error that C.S.Lewis called; “The arrogance of chronology.” – i.e. – the belief that since we exist at a latter date than those who came before us, we must be superior in every way, especially in mental abilities.
Mans intelligence hasn’t increased, his accumulation of data has. If you doubt that, try this experiment;
Build a tower in your backyard that will give you a clear view of the night sky
Using only a plumb bob, straight edge, protractor, and a pair of dividers observe and record the movements of the heavenly bodies
When you have accumulated enough data;
1. Calculate the rising and setting of each of the major stars and planets
2. Compute solar and lunar eclipses for the next two thousand years
3. {this is the killer] Do all of your work by hand and use the Babylonian numerical system.
A very wise modern astronomer, I can’t recall his name, said; ” If the sun did revolve around the Earth, what would it look like?”
We only appear smarter than our forebears because we have access to all of the knowledge they spent their lives discovering.
One interesting angle to the concept is that… if there are indeed other intelligences out there and if any of them are, say, merely 40 years advanced of us, then they are already looking at us. From there, those a few hundred years ahead of us have been perhaps watching us from a distance for quite a while.
Good work. I barely could have said it better myself. But none of this does not mean that we are not headed back to “a world lit only by fire.” For much of the human race, worldwide feudalism and a pre-industrial economic regimen might be a more comfortable state that what we have now. What will survive? Trans-oceanic travel. Limited telegraphy — wired or even wireless. Limited steam power. The printed page. Limited local DC power distribution. Firearms. Limited scientific agriculture and medicine. But not all of it everywhere. Not any of it in many places.
Pure conjencture. Billions of dollars for moon landings, sattelites, SETI, etc., etc.; and not one shred of provable evidence has been found.
There is no alien life.
We are all we’ve got.
“Life doesn’t exist anywhere but earth? That’s like filling a cup with ocean water and saying there aren’t any whales in the ocean.”
-Neil Degrasse Tyson
quite a few years ago the vatican announced that the existance of aliens would not affect the doctrine of the catholic church. the aliens would undoubtably have their own unique jesus story to have guided them as well. Not an exact quote. look it up…
Where have you been? They’ve been here! Majestic 23
curiosity killed the cat maybe we should let this be.
ignorance is not bliss. It's a false sense of reality. But the reality is that a lot of people already know what is true and don't have to wait another 40 years to say what they think they will find. When in fact the truth has been with us for a VERY long time. There are those of us who have chosen to ignore it and out right lie to the rest of us about it. Why? That's easy. Power and control. Of What you say? Money, economics, Knowledge, Religions, the Nature of this reality…ect…
ignorance is not bliss. It’s a false sense of reality. But the reality is that a lot of people already know what is true and don’t have to wait another 40 years to say what they think they will find. When in fact the truth has been with us for a VERY long time. There are those of us who have chosen to ignore it and out right lie to the rest of us about it. Why? That’s easy. Power and control. Of What you say? Money, economics, Knowledge, Religions, the Nature of this reality…ect…
Just wondering, maybe there is alien life out there but what says that it exists in this current time frame, as opposed to a billion years ago or a million years in the future?
40 years? He, he…who wrote that heading?
40 years? 0 (for many who already know) to 40 years ( for others), although 40 years seems too long (it's more and more difficult to keep the lid on).
Arthur C. Clarke used to say; “There is no advanced life within fifty light years of us, or the cops would be here by now.” – figuring we have been broadcasting for a hundred years- fifty years out, fifty years to get here, presuming travel at light speed is more than a plot device for Space Operas.
lets be honest here shall we , whether or not we go "looking" or extraterrestrial or not is irrelevant , we are not alone , that is what common sense dictates , of all the planets that orbit all the stars in all the galaxies in an infinite universe , we cannot be the only planet with life , its illogical and may I say down right ignorant to believe anything otherwise , the drake theorum states that just based on probabilty alone (never mind all the evidence found hoax or otherwise) that we are not alone in the universe and we are most certainly not the most advanced , the cleverest or indeed in any way superior to any other life we encounter. As a species , hell as a planet , we are young and immature , we have not had the time to develop enough yet , for those of you the believe aliens are fiction or that even if they are not we are superior to them , you are wrong , as a race we are fundamentally flawed , and it is this devastating flaw in our genetics as a species that will stop us advancing to a point where we can say we are even close to the best life in the universe , we war over insignificant and immature things like money , land , power and religion , as a race we are violent , enigmatic and immature and as a race we cannot and indeed will not succeed anywhere other than this planet because we are just too damn violent and as I said immature , think of it like this , its like an asshole teenager who think hes top dog in his area , most popular , most well known , but when he moves to a new town some other guy kicks the shit out of him because of his attitude… that asshole teenager is the human race.