NASA revealed this week that there’s a planet out there that seems to have a really good chance of supporting life. For the moment, at least, it has the unromantic name Kepler 22B. It’s about twice as big as Earth, but lies within a reasonable distance of the star around which it revolves, and the surface temperature is said to average around 72 degrees. The next trick is to find out if there’s water on it, which could be a clue as to whether it supports life.
While this is quite a discovery, it’s not exactly breaking news, cosmically speaking. Kepler 22B is some 600 light-years away from here, which means whatever our space telescopes can see happened about 600 years ago – relatively close, though, in space terms.
If you think about it logically, considering the size of the universe, the odds are much better than even that there is life on other planets. Does it have to look like us? Does it matter?
I have no doubt there are other beings out there, and I don’t have a problem with that. When I was about eight years old and the original version of the movie “Invaders From Mars” was released, many of my friends were running screaming from the theater when the aliens appeared, but I sat there and watched the whole thing without flinching.
We continue to wait for proof of alien contact, but it’s very possible they’ve already been here. After creating a few crop circles, drawing giant figures in the Peruvian desert and helping with a Stonehenge or two, maybe most got bored and moved on. But I wish those still arriving would pick better places to land. A few years ago, when I worked in radio news in Southern California, a guy called me on the phone and said that a UFO had landed in front of him one night on a lonely stretch of Interstate 10 between Indio and Blythe. I had no reason to disbelieve him, except that he had no proof. With everyone armed with smart phones, the aliens couldn’t get away with that now. If we aspire to a little intergalactic tourism, why shouldn’t they enjoy it?
Not to go Biblical on you, but it’s documented in the New Testament that Jesus said, “Other sheep have I that are not of this fold.” Most of you will say, of course, that’s not what he was talking about.
Really?
2 comments:
Great post, Mike! I often wonder what life would be like on other, distant planets. It's extremely self-centered and ridiculous to think that we're the ONLY ones in this vast universe. Evolution is an incredible thing, and can be on more than one planet!
My dad is compelled by what type of questions people would ask if they could meet an extraterrestrial (that presumably could communicate). When you google this, people say they'd ask such things as "do you have war?" and "how do you define love?" Others say they'd ask "how much are gas prices on your planet?" Haha. The type of questions we'd ask shed light on our nature as people. What would you ask?
Thanks, Crystal! The first thing that comes to mind is, "Do you take American Express?" But I'm sure there will be others...
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