Alien Life May Already Be Extinct

Photo Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory

We look to the stars hoping to find signs of life elsewhere in our universe. Our search includes listening for audio and video signals, and we have entire agencies such as SETI who are dedicated to this search. The problem is we may have already missed our window to meet extraterrestrial life.

Human civilization is approximately 10,000 years old. Sounds like we've been around for a long time, but Earth is estimated to be a little over 4.5 billion years old. Even if aliens have taken the time to explore and/or visit Earth, they may have done it at a time when humanity wasn't even around. Maybe dinosaurs were the species at a time when alien life visited our planet and if this is a possibility it is possibly safe to assume that alien life overlooked Earth because they didn't deem that our planet had intelligent life.

With the advancement of technologies in the past 100 years alone, we ourselves have the ability to destroy ourselves. Crossing our fingers, hopefully this is something we as a species will never do, but one has to wonder...if another alien species developed at a slightly quicker rate than humanity, could they have already destroyed themselves before we ever had the chance to meet? It is possible that intelligent life that has existed elsewhere has already run into their own extinction.

Even if an organization like SETI found proof via a signal, by the time we could send a signal back or travel to the planet where it originated from, that species could be long gone. Signals can travels hundreds and even thousands of years. It's possible that the species could even be extinct by the time we first detected a signal.

This possibly has already occurred. In 1977, Jerry R. Ehman discovered what is now known as the "Wow! Signal" at the Big Ear radio telescope located at Ohio State University. The signal lasted for 72 seconds and is called the "Wow! Signal" because on the printout he wrote the word Wow. Since then SETI has not been able to find another signal similar to this.

"We should have seen it again when we looked for it 50 times. Something suggests it was an Earth-sourced signal that simply got reflected off a piece of space debris," said Ehman who doubts it came from extraterrestrial life. The signal came from a location that is estimated to be 17,600 light years away. While Ehman may be right, it is also possible that the species that created it is long gone. This doesn't mean that intelligent life elsewhere doesn't exist. It just means that it just doesn't exist now.

Another possibility is that by the time alien life does get around to being able to visit Earth, we may have already destroyed ourselves through nuclear war or climate change. Will they find archeological evidence of our existence? Possibly. They may also find a barren planet covered in sand. Maybe this is what happened to alien life if any existed on Mars.

Yet even another possibility that should be looked at is if we are the most advanced civilization in the nearby universe currently. The conditions could be right for alien life to develop into an intelligent species, but we may be years ahead of these aliens. We could be looking for signs of their life when in turn, they should be looking for signs of us.

With a universe that is billions of years old and contains billions of stars and planets, it's hard to believe that we're alone. It's just not hard to believe that other intelligent life may have already lived and died off.

Moon Base Logical Next Step in Space Exploration

Launching a rocket from Earth to space requires a large amount of fuel to overcome gravity and to get out of Earth's atmosphere. The extra weight of the spacecraft and the expensive cost of fuel make launching from the moon instead of Earth a possibly cheaper idea when talking about sending out satellites and astronauts to farther and farther reaches of our galaxy.

The moon would be the best first step in creating a launching point for deep space exploration. The initial cost to set up a moon base would be costly, but in the long run, a cheaper investment overall if we expect to eventually reach destinations such as Mars or even asteroids to mine for materials.

There has been speculation that a rocket can achieve a higher speed if launched from a lower gravity location. Earth's atmosphere and gravity slow rockets down at the initial launch. If humanity were to build a base on the moon, the peak speed reached by a rocket could be higher.

Eventually humanity needs to get off Earth as it is. In the short term, we may have to escape Earth because of the damage we have created through climate change. In the long term, the sun is a growing star that is ever expanding and eventually life on Earth will have to adapt and most likely leave the planet to avoid extinction (if we aren't extinct already).

There are resources elsewhere in our galaxy if we intend to explore our solar system and beyond. Asteroids have various elements that we can use to explore even farther. Moons of several planets are believed to possible have water as well. NASA is also finding exo-planets which could contain useful materials.

Space is our final frontier and if we expect to expand the lifespan of our species, we need to start with space bases. Starting with the moon seems to be easiest and most logical place to start.

Halloween Asteroid to Buzz by Earth

Nine days from now, on Halloween night, our planet will be getting buzzed by an asteroid that will be flying nearby. Hurling through space at 78,830 miles-per-hour, the asteroid is expected to safely pass by Earth with no problem. The asteroid that is called 2015 TB145, will be as close as 300,000 miles from Earth, which is just a little farther that our own moon at 238,900 miles.

This particular asteroid is fairly large in size at 2,034 feet in diameter. In comparison, the asteroid that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013 was only 66 feet across before it disintegrated and caused a load of damage to buildings.

Now while NASA has informed us that this won't be a threat to the world, it wasn't discovered until three weeks before it is scheduled to fly by the planet. If this had be a serious threat to colliding with Earth, this wouldn't be enough time for us to do anything. Even the best prospective plans that scientists have come up with would require more advanced notice than three weeks. We would be doomed. I'm sure there might be a conspiracy nut or two that might be claiming that 2015 TB145 IS a planet killer and that NASA isn't being truthful with us.

Now what if this isn't an asteroid that will miss us? JPL scientists estimate an asteroid the size of a house, traveling at 30,000 miles-per-hour would be approximately equal to the power of the energy released from the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima. 2015 TB145 is traveling over twice as fast and is at least forty times larger. This is supposed to be the biggest asteroid scheduled to pass by Earth until 2027, so if this one passes, at least for the next twelve years, they won't be as big.

This only exacerbates the need for humanity to A) develop a way to find potential "Earth Killers" sooner, B) develop a way to destroy them when they are getting too close, C) and eventually find a way to colonize planets or other planetary bodies to preserve the human species.

While this asteroid will be flying close by and is over 2,000 feet in diameter, you'll still need a telescope to catch a visual of it on Halloween night. That is if you're not too busy passing out candy.

Photo Courtesy of NASA