THE SEARCH FOR LIFE - A HYPOTHESIS
© Copyright 2002 Video Gamer X Publications

For many years, Science Fiction has conjured races, types, shapes, and forms of extraterrestrials, some of them vicious and deadly, while others benevolent and seemingly innocent. Since officially no one has published a catalog of xenobiology (this is the study of extraterrestrial life) we can only make guesses as to what any creature or intelligent being from another world other than our own would look like. However, using what is known about our environment, and scientific study it is safe to make some educated assumptions regarding the physiology of intelligent life on other worlds than our own.

The search for extraterrestrials begins here on Earth. There are billions of different species of living things here on this planet, ranging from single-celled micro-organisms like bacteria, to multi-systemed creatures that have cognitive reasoning skills like a human being. Between these two extremes are a plethora of variations and specifically adapted species that may only live in one place rather than another or may have more influence on lesser species. Evolution has proven that over time the stresses of a species environment cause it to adapt to those changes, however this process doesn't occur overnight, it may take millions of years, and likewise changes in environmental conditions here on Earth can take just as long. A good example of environmental adaptation can easily be observed. Fish have adapted the capability to live and breath underwater, their bodies are maximized to be best suited for that environment, as well birds have adapted bone structure and wing design to give them the ability to fly. Earth has many different environments, some very harsh, however life still lives there in one form or another. Human beings appeared here and we also adapted to our environment with technology, and have come to populate the entire planet with our species.

One thing that is undoubtedly likely is that other planets than Earth are not going to be exactly like Earth. There may be greater or less gravity, higher or lower atmospheric pressure, different composition of gasses in the atmosphere, a brighter source of light and radiatioin, be hotter or cooler, or be geologically different. In our own solar system, the 4 terrestrial (means they are made of heavy elements rather than gas like Jupiter or Saturn) planets themselves exhibit very different conditions.

Mercury has virtually no atmosphere and is extensively baked by the sun on one side and frozen on the opposite side. It is an entirely inhospitable place to live. The surface is rocky and pockmarked with craters. Mercury will likely stay in its condition until the sun finally uses up its fuel several billion years from now and expands to absorb mercury in so doing. I don't forsee even future humans wasting their time and resources trying to terraform this worthless rock when Mars or maybe Venus are better cantidates. Possibly, if there was a reason to mine heavy elements and ore from the rocks of mercury this will be accomplished by unmanned robots.

Venus, if it wasn't such an atmospheric crucible would likely be a possible second Earth. Venus, is a greenhouse effect gone to the extreme. Intense pressure and sulfuric acid storms scour the surface, anything on Venus would be smashed and corroded by intense and inhospitable atmospheric conditions. Venus has no water, if for some reason water could be transported there it would be instantly dissolved. If hell were a real place, it has been said that Venus is it. It is accepted that there is no life there, at least anything that we could identify as such. If there was any kind of life there, it would be exotic and very strange and defy just about everything we currently know about biology.

The third inner planet of our solar system you are on right now, sitting your butt in that seat breathing in an atmospheric cocktail of Nitrogen and Oxygen and then you exhale Carbon Dioxide back into the air. Earth in comparison to a planet like Venus has a relatively stable atmosphere. This planet on average is not too hot or too cold to support life, and is covered virtually everywhere with what is considered the most important component of life, and that's water. From space Earth the most distinct color that can be seen from space is blue, the color of the oceans and all the water collected on its surface, and white, the color of water vapor in the atmosphere and of water frozen on the polar ice caps. The planet hosts billions of living things. It is accepted scientifically that water = life and is crucial component in the development of it, and that anywhere you find it, preferrably in liquid form, there will likely be some form of life or at least a strong probability of it.

This brings the journey of the inner planets to Mars. Mars is an interesting case, it's essentially not too cold or too hot to support life, although it's average temperature is considerably lower than Earth's. Mars does have an atmosphere but it is very thin as compared to Earth's, as well the planet has one third of Earth's gravity. (You would weigh 1/3 what you weigh now) One interesting thing about Mars is that it also has water on its surface, but not the blue kind like Earth, rather it's frozen in the polar ice caps or in permafrost. However there is significant evidence right now to support that there is water underneath the surface and also that at one point in time water was flowing on the surface of Mars. Mars has numerious regions where it appears there was erosion due to the movement of water as well as areas that look like they were once oceans and lakes that have since evaporated or seeped into the ground. It is believed that a long time ago Mars and Earth shared many similarities. In recent decades the evidence and science related to studying Mars is showing that there is a good chance there is life there. Based on the fact that there is water on the surface or underneath the surface this is a conducive breeding place for it. As well, several years ago, a meteorite that was a rock from the surface of Mars contained fossilized single celled organisms, however there has been some debate on this issue as to whether the fossils show an odd kind of crystal growth or a fossilized bacteria. My own personal opinion is that right now there is life on Mars, but probably only as complex and burrowing insects or worms at the most.

Currently there appears to be no complex forms of life or intelligent life on Mars, however it is speculated that there may have once been. Some odd surface anomalies and what would appear to be buildings or monuments, even a sphinx-like prehistoric humanoid face, have been photographed by NASA probes, however this issue is under a significant amount of debate, and not supported by the entire scientific community. There is controversy as to whether or not NASA has been advised or directed to cover-up some very significant and society altering discoveries on Mars. The most vocal advocate regarding this issue has been a once adviser to NASA, Richard C. Hoagland. This is nothing new however, considering during the 19th century, astronomers thought that there were canals and channels dug on the surface by intelligent beings, but this was later proven false by better telescopes and space probes sent to the planet. The whole Monuments on Mars issue percolates around the entire governmental information conspiracy belief, but since the ordinary person can neither prove it, or disprove it, it must be taken for face value without jumping to conclusions, until more information or substantial evidence is released to the public.

Mars is really our next big step for mankind. We went to the moon, there wasn't much there, but Mars on the other hand, has a lot more to explore and this will likely be the planet as a species we migrate to and change into a world like Earth in the coming centuries. Whether or not there was or wasn't intelligent life there in the past does not affect the fact that Mars is tomorrow's "New World" for some future Columbus and later pilgrims from planet Earth.

Once you travel beyond the inner terrestrial planets past the belt of asteroids that are the remains of a planet that could have been, there are the gas giants. There are no real viewable surfaces to these rather just intense winds of gasses. Because of the large mass and gravity of these planets they hold many moons around them in orbit, some of which are almost the size of planets like Earth. Some interesting moons that seem to have water or a similar, although colder atmosphere to Earth, are Europa and Titan, respectively. Europa has been observed by probes and shown to have an icy surface, kind of like an egg, and there are various cracks and chasms in the surface of the "shell" indicating that there is warmth down underneath the ice. It is belived that Europa is a world covered in an ocean underneath the ice, however the ice is several miles thick. If Europa has a warm core then there is a good possibility that a kind of marine life lives deep underneath the ice, and because this life gets no sunlight whatsoever it would likely be exotic and bizarre and have traits similar to what is found in very deep parts of Earth's oceans where no sunlight can get to. Titan has a rocky surface and frozen water, and an atmosphere that contains oxygen and nitrogen like Earth, however it is a very cold place with temperatures a couple hundred degrees below zero. There are plans to investigate Europa by drilling under the ice to deploy a kind of submarine, but these are distant in the future unless NASA gets more funding.

Due to our limited space exploration technology and lack of financial support in this regard these planet's or moons that could support life in our solar system have yet to be investigated enough to determine the actual fact. In this solar system of the Milky Way Galaxy we are the only intelligent life forms. However the Milky Way Galaxy has a few hundred billion other stars, many like our own sun, and the likelihood of intelligent alien life is an almost certainty. So far our best telescopes have discovered over one hundred planets around nearby stars just within the last decade, but these worlds are around the size of Jupiter or larger, likely gas giants. It is very hard to see small planets the size of Earth because the star they orbit is so bright and the planets so tiny in comparison that that the light of the star completely overwhelms the reflected light of the planet. These large gas planets have been discovered by observing the brightness of stars that would periodically dim or brighten. When the large planet passed in front of the star it eclipsed it and astronomers discovered this through telescopes. Another method used to discover planets involves observing the wobble of a star. In space objects with mass and gravity influence other objects. This can be observed here on Earth by tides caused by the Moon. The Moon tugs on the Earth. In similar fashion these gigantic planets tug on the stars they orbit and cause them to shimmy back and forth, and by observing the wobble the size of the object pulling on the star can be mathematically computed even if it can't be directly seen.

Planetary systems appear to be commonplace, so the case for the opportunity and probability for extraterrestrial life to appear is adequately made. For intelligent life to appear it would require some more specific guidelines, foremost stability. In order for the evolution of life from simple to complex it would require an extensive period of relatively stable circumstances in the planetary system in which it propagates. If there were asteroids colliding with the surface of a planet constantly heaving up the land and shrouding the atmosphere in toxic dust, there's a good chance nothing significant could survive on a world like this. Some planetary systems include two or more stars, and gravity changes could send a planet careening into the depths of interstellar space or plunging into the star or another planet. Furthermore, a star that was unstable and ejected large amounts of material into the surrounding system would stunt evolution. Similar to our own solar system, the planet couldn't be too far away or too close to its neighboring star because it would be too cold or hot to support evolution. An important component of life similar to what appears on Earth is water, and if it boils away or is frozen Earth's kind of life could not evolve on a world like that. It is accepted that around stable stars like our sun there is a distance or "life ring" that extends a certain distance around a star where life has the capability of occuring. There are many stars similar to our own and it is believed that these have surrounding planets, under the absence of the conditions outlined above could potentially sustain life, as well as an evolutionary process resulting in intelligent life.

Perhaps the most important aspect of human physiology that allowed us to become intelligent and gave humans the ability to interact and manipulate their invironment was an opposable thumb. The fact that a human can grasp objects allowed for the ability to fashion tools and create shelter, to hunt, and for protection. The very first such tools were actually just objects like rocks and sticks. As well the capacity of the human brain to retain information and learn from experience gave humans an advantage over species without an ability to comprehend abstract reasoning skill and transcend instinctive behaviors. Looking at the timescale of Earth's history, actual human civilized society has only just recently appeared, and if Earth's history were equivalent to twenty four hours, human beings would occupy the space at the time 11:59:59 PM, less than one comparative second of Earth's history. It took millions of years of evolution and change on Earth to allow human beings to develop from lesser primates, and even lesser mammals prior.

The fact that we evolved from Primates makes us look the way we do, and have the kind of physiology we have and a human can be defined. Humans are warm-blooded animals. Some humans are female and some are male and the male must impregnate the female in order to reproduce. The female usually produces one reproductive cell per cycle, while the male produces millions regularly. The female gives birth to live offspring, more often than not one at a time. We have five senses for interpreting our environment, we have two legs for walking and travelling from one place to another on the surface of land, and two arms to grasp and manipulate our world. Humans can not breathe under water and their lungs are not developed for respiration of seawater. We can make noises and sounds to communicate with other humans and as well have developed numerous written representations of those sounds and have defined the sounds and representations with meaning. We must injest food that contains nutrients from our environment in order to stay alive. Humans process the food they injest through their bodies and then expell biological waste matter that is unused. Human bodies use the oxygen content in the atmosphere to breathe and expell carbon dioxide. Humans must enter a period of rest or inactivity, most often performed when the sun is not visible and it is dark. This is an example of instinctive behavior left over from nature when human ancestor primates found it safer to hide, remain motionless, and rest at night because it was difficult to see and protect against predators. Humans are social creatures and cluster in groups, for protection as well as emotional stimulation.

It is safe to say that any intelligent extraterrestrial's evolution would follow roughly the same influencial guidelines humans faced. Now let's be totally clear, by no means am I saying that they discovered sticks and rocks, and eventually made axes, and fire, and later airplanes, but in general, whatever kind of environment they inhabited and what ever means they needed to survive early in their evolution, they would have had to find ingenious ways of overcoming obstacles or their species would become exinct or not develop at all to become catagorized as "intelligent."

Physiologically, an intelligent extraterrestrial species would have to be a result of evolution within its environment. Examining at the diversity on Earth is a possible glimpse of some of the possibilities out in the cosmos. Some of these beings under the influence of less gravity than us could be very thin and tall or more structured for floating through the air. Their cities and society would work around their physiology. Potentially some of them could respiriate other gasses than oxygen, like nitrogen, or carbon dioxide or maybe even sulfer or chlorine. Like plants a species could obtain nourishment from the sun through chloraphyll laden cells covering their bodies. Furthermore, more than likely they could be from an entirely different kind of species than human beings, essentially reptilian, amphibian, feline, insect-like, or aquatic. One aspect of physiology that seems to be a dominant trait on Earth is that most species here have bilateral symmetry, meaning that both sides of the organism look and function basically the same. This is not always the case, but most what are considered higher lifeforms that have brains carry this trait. Perhaps this symmetry is a natural state of multicellular-life and it can be assumed that it is similar on other worlds, but I do have to wonder just exactly if an organism with a different shapes of protiens in the nucleus of the cell combining to form different shapes of DNA would look like. Is it possible for an intelligent being to be tri-symmetrical, radially symmetrical, or spherically symmetrical? Such oddities might sound far fetched but it's not beyond the scope of reasonability.

Sooner or later human technology is going to innundate our biology to correct the physical stresses and deterioration that our body must endure. This evolution in itself will entirely change the appearance and function of the human body, and extraterrestrials using technology will follow a similar path and anything more advanced than we are now or in the near future will be merged with their technology in some fashion and the interface between biology and technology will be entirely seemless.

It is safe to assume that any intelligent extraterrestrial species would incur similar trails and difficulties that the human race has and still is undergoing. However these experiences and their development could have happened long before primates existed on Earth. The nature of the universe, and on a lesser scale the galaxy, is such that stellar development and the life cycle of stars is not directly simultaneous, rather occuring whenever possible and capable across the immense span of time from the birth of the galaxy to its eventual extinction, a vast gulf of time spanning multi-billions of years. The same science and social concerns that we today grapple with and attempt to understand would have been long since resolved and progressed upon by a species that is only just 10,000 years more evolved than we are, but it is very probable that a race of beings would be many millions of years beyond our level of evolution.

An event that may come to pass, at some point in the future is the discovery of what is left behind from such an incredibly advanced race. Having used up the resources of their world or region of space, or having evolved beyond the need of any resource we can fathom, a race of superbeings would scarcely need their homeworld when the entire universe was their playground. We may discover through our future journeys in the galaxy relics of an ancient race that has long since vanished beyond physical existence as we know it. Their planet and solar system could be littered with artifacts of their society many of which might seem completely unfathomable, beyond anything our science could hope to achieve in 100 lifetimes. I invision objects the size of a star or a whole solar system that could take humans thousands of years to even touch a fraction of the knowledge of using them.

Before human beings actually see intelligent life beyond our solar system, we may be able to infer or detect it is there with technology we possess today. Across the planet effort is being made to use radio telescopes to detect signals from space that are not of natural origin or may have some kind of pattern or repetition to them. There have been attempts at doing this for years however not until now with the power of scientific instruments and computers been powerful enough to make an attempt at doing such a gargantuan task. The SETI project aims to one day discover a signal from space that was sent by extraterrestrial intelligence.

Myself, I can't say that I'm entirely optimistic that a radio signal may be detected in the near future, it's possible that the use of radio waves during the technological evolution of any species may only be for but a very brief window of time, and other more efficient and faster forms of unwired communication may be in use or the species would be at a state where they have not yet discovered radio, microwaves, or anything we currently possess. However, if there are hundreds of thousands of intelligent species in our galaxy then maybe at least one of them is occupying about the same level of technological advancement that we currently have and is inadvertently or intentially transmitting various signals into space from the vacinity of their homeworld. If we dectected these signals we would then have to decypher their meaning which would be so foriegn and bizzare that an alien language or set of data instructions might just be beyond comprehension by our brightest minds. I assume that it would be obviously more preferable to encounter some kind of visual or television image that would depict something that we could observe.

Something that has to be taken into account is the immutable fact that if extraterrestrials are out there, and they can travel between the stars like we humans travel between cities then they would likely know of our existence already or for that matter know of our existence but view us as entirely negligible and primative not worthy of the resources required to visit our solar system. It is also completely possible that a race may take interest in watching us evolve, a kind of window into their own past that may have been long lost and forgotten. They may even treat us like we treat animals and examine us biologically and return us to our native environment with a "tag." Aliens do not want to invade our planet though, considering if they wanted it badly enough they would have done so long ago, and our feeble antiquated technology would be in vain in preventing their invasion. Any intelligence that is capable of travelling across the galaxy more than likely has virtually limitless and inexhaustable resources at it's disposal. Earth would be but another pebble on the beach and not worthy of such worthless effort to conquer.

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