10 Controversial Theories About The Universe's Toughest Questions
2. Life On Other Worlds: It's There Or It Isn't, Both Are Frightening
Are we alone in the universe? To paraphrase David Drumlin, the character from the wonderful Carl Sagans novel Contact, there are only two possibilities;
1. That no other life exists out there or,
2. That they are out there but so far away well never be able to contact them in our lifetimes.
Coming from the pen of Carl Sagan these words are both accurate and prophetic. It is most likely, given that the universe does not do things just once and the previously postulated inevitability of life with the physics and chemistry of our universe, that we are not alone.
There are, according to the famous Drake Equation, possibly up to 10,000 advanced civilisations just in our observable universe. That may sound like a lot but given the vast enormity of the universe the chances of actually holding a conversation with any of them would be so infinitesimally remote as to be pointless to even try.
Certainly our current method of detection, the radio-telescopes such as the VLA in New Mexico, are almost certainly pointless for searching for extra-terrestrial life. The method is so old and so inefficient that it would have been given up long ago in favour of some other method of communication, like laser light or even Star Trek style sub-space that we haven't even discovered yet.
There is, however, another possibility, and a far more sobering one; maybe we are alone.
Maybe in all the universe ours is the only little blue planet that sits just the right distance from just the right type of star with just the right angle of tilt to cause dramatic, but not too dramatic, seasons and just the right configuration of a solar system to protect said planet from all the chaos of planetary formation (high five to Jupiter for keeping us alive) and with just the right chemical composition, magnetic core and atmosphere to produce intelligent life. When you consider the confluence of events that had to happen in order for our species to evolve it does seem unlikely that it could happen somewhere else in exactly that order.
If it is just us, then we have a duty to be better, to look after this crucible of life and to explore the universe together to spread life throughout the stars. If we dont, the universe may lose its greatest, and most promising creation us. But then again, if it is just us, it seems an awful waste of space.