North York Central Library Blog

Is there life beyond earth? Physicist Stephen Hawking believes there is no greater question. Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner have forged an alliance of brains and bucks to search for extraterrestrial life. Milner is giving $100 million to fund the search for creatures from outer space. The Breakthrough Initiatives project will use powerful radio telescopes, and get help from volunteers all over the world. Some of the money will go to SETI@home (SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Do you want to be part it? You can let your computer analyze radio telescope data when you aren't using it. Check out SETI@home if you're interested.

If you scoff at the idea of life on other planets, consider the findings of Nasa's space observatory, Kepler, which was launched in 2009. Data from Kepler suggests there may be as many as 40 billion planets orbiting in the Goldilocks zone (or habitable zone) around their respective stars. The discovery of extremophiles on earth – organisms that live in environments previously thought too harsh to support life, suggests there might be a lot more than 40 billion possibilities. The discovery earlier this summer of an earth-like planet about 1,400 light years away, in the constellation Cygnus, will surely add fuel to our visions of bug eyed monsters and little green men.

Just think: on a planet orbiting some distant star, perhaps under the light of triple moons, some mindless wet lump may be dragging itself from the mud, just beginning to ooze up it's evolutionary path. Or is some cold intelligence already in transit across the vast darkness of outer space — an alien armada intent on colonizing the earth? Consider the immortal words of H. G. Wells, at the beginning of his classic novel of first contact between humans and extraterrestrials, The war of the worlds: Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

I hope I live to see the day humans make first contact with extraterrestrial life — even if it's just a humble (or not so humble) microbe. You only have to look at some of the bizarre life forms here on earth to realize it's going to be pretty weird out there.

Consider the goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstone):

_{^{Image: Creative Commons}}

Or the thorny devil (Moloch horridus), an Australian lizard:

  Image: Creative Commons

Or how about the purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis), which lives in India?

Image: Creative Commons

Or the naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber), which lives in East Africa:

Image: Creative Commons

Or the blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus) which looks like it inspired the Doctor Who costume department:

Image: University of Washington Conservation

What will extraterrestrial life be like? Will our first close encounter be with powerful yet benevolent beings who will give us fabulous new gadgets, solve all our problems and give us eternal life? Or will they be reptilian predators with metal melting saliva whose only interest in us will be as incubators for their young (as in the Alien movies)? Science fiction writers have long envisioned first contact between humans and extraterrestrials. Below are some books on this theme. You'll get no plot descriptions from me — I'm no spoiler. If you know your science fiction, match the alien to the book. Here's your loot bag of aliens: deadly microorganisms, homicidal vegetation, a dad impersonator, spidery creatures, helpful devils, a "woman" with a thing for hitchhikers, a sentient planet, blind aliens of the deep, yellow eyed telepaths, monolith builders, and the ever popular martians with tentacles.  

No I do not provide the answers at the end of this post. If you want the answers, you'll have to read the books! I do, however, reveal the identity of the most beautiful life form in the universe…

Drum roll, please! Even if we search every planet in this vast universe, we won't find a life form more beautiful than the cat. (I know, librarians and their cats again. Sorry for being a living cliché.) This is probably what H. G. Wells meant in the fantastic opening paragraph of the War of the worlds  –  I bet the "envious eyes" of his aliens were envying earth cats.

If you'd like to learn more about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, consider borrowing the 4 DVD set, Life in our universe. It's a part of the Great Courses series, and is taught by Dr. Laird Close, an award-winning Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

I recently enjoyed watching the DVD Into the universe with Stephen Hawking, especially the segment on extraterrestrial beings. Very imaginative!