8 Mind-Bending Unanswered Questions About The Universe

5. Should We?

The next big question that comes into play if we do end up stumbling on intelligent aliens is whether or not we should say hello.

It seems like an obvious choice, why would we purposefully isolate ourselves at the very moment we discover that we are not alone in the void?

It does largely depend on what kind of aliens they are and, if we're being brutally honest, if they're anything like us then we should probably consider steering clear.

Stephen Hawking rocked the boat a while ago by suggesting that we should probably put the kibosh on broadcasting our existence to the galaxy.

He, and a fair few other, think that it could be akin to Christopher Columbus' landing in the Americas, but on an intergalactic scale. Even without the transmission of deadly diseases, the risk that the aliens we discover might perceive us as either a threat, or a bug to be squished, is, for some, too big to take.

Some take a more optimistic view, however, and suggest that the distances between potentially habitable planets are so great, that the chances of anything but a few simple signals getting through, let alone a fleet of warships, are virtually nonexistent.