(ORDO NEWS) — Yes, but they probably don’t look like us. According to the most conservative estimates, there are more than 100 billion planets in our Galaxy alone (about six billion potentially Earth-like). Therefore, the possibility that life exists elsewhere is almost certain.
However, when we hear the word “alien”, what usually comes to mind is the image of a humanoid life form that has been promoted by popular culture for decades. But even on Earth, the dominant form of life is much older, smaller and more resilient than humans.
I am, of course, talking about microorganisms. They defy science because they are able to survive in extreme places such as the mud around volcanic vents. I’m willing to bet that pretty alien life is ubiquitous in the universe in the form of similar “extremophiles”.
In fact, NASA recently sent tiny tardigrades to the International Space Station so that astronauts can study how they operate and survive in such an unfamiliar and even extreme environment.
With more and more key ingredients for the origin and maintenance of life being discovered in our solar system, it seems that various forms of life are widespread throughout the galaxy.
But what about more advanced life?
The reality is that space is vast. And from the Kepler mission [NASA space telescope, which was launched on March 6, 2009 to search for exoplanets; On November 15, 2018, the machine stopped working] we learned that finding other worlds is quite difficult, not to mention identifying one that looks like Earth.
Add to that the fact that it took billions of years for life to develop on Earth, so it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll find a similar kind of alien [similar to Earth life forms].
But we do not lose hope. Scientists continue to use advanced radio telescopes to search for signals from deep space that may be part of extraterrestrial radio communications.
Conclusion: perhaps, extraterrestrial life is widespread in the Universe, but it is mostly represented by microorganisms. Intelligent aliens, if they exist, most likely do not look like humans at all.
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