• Question: Do you believe in aliens?

    Asked by anon-187140 to Stewart, David, Kathryn, Laura, Marton, Miriam on 13 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-187170.
    • Photo: David Ho

      David Ho answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      I don’t know enough about the processes involved in starting off life, or the vast number of planets in the universe, to say whether I believe or not. But I don’t think I would be surprised if I found out they did exist.

    • Photo: Stewart Martin-Haugh

      Stewart Martin-Haugh answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      I believe there could be aliens. Assuming they’re similar to us, they would have to live on a planet with a similar climate, water etc. So far astronomers have found 3874 planets, but the first was only seen in 1992! There are at least 16 planets in other solar systems that might have life.

      We haven’t heard anything from aliens, but it’s possible they might be communicating using particles that we find difficult to detect. Some of my colleagues are building bigger particle detectors that might be able to read these messages, if they exist!

    • Photo: Miriam Hogg

      Miriam Hogg answered on 14 Nov 2018:

      Yes definitely!
      I think that life occurs very rarely, but there are billions of stars with planets around them so just thinking of the numbers its probable that there is life on other planets. Whether they are like us is another question. They probably wouldn’t have evolved in the same way, they will have evolved to survive on their planet and that might look like nothing we can imagine.

      I don’t think we will be able to find life on other planets for a long time, and even if we do we would be unable to communicate quickly as they might be light years away!

      To quote Arthur C. Clarke:
      “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

      I think this is a very interesting idea!

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