Chapter 28
Scientific research about life in space
Until fifty years ago, nobody knew enough about the state of space to speak about the existence of Earth-like planets. If somebody wrote about it, then only in science fiction novels and in a way very far from reality. Tales reigned about green men, about aliens having a bizarre appearance and about aliens threatening our civilization. Most people treated these stories as a fantasy not based on any scientific basis.
Since the second half of the twentieth century, thanks to new telescopes placed in space, a breakthrough in the science of the structure of the universe has taken place. Theoretical astrophysics primarily contributed to this. The significant development of quantum physics has also made a significant contribution to understanding energy transformations in space. The world of science has suddenly received enough tools to make us realize that the universe was once formed and that it is an unimaginable space composed of billions of galaxies, accompanied by dark matter and dark energy. Larger new generation telescopes and space probes have enabled scientists to explore the universe deeper. At the end of the twentieth century, the Kepler telescope was sent into space, which caused a rapid influx of data on the state of space. The world arms race, which also began to cover space, also had a significant impact on the progress of knowledge. A flood of discoveries of millions and even billions of planets, which were called exoplanets, was similar to Earth-like ones. Along with these discoveries, there were many speculations about the possibility of living in space.
As a result of these discoveries and intensive analysis of their results, scientists have understood that we are almost invisible pollen in space, even on the scale of the galaxy called the Milky Way. Especially it became the object of observation and research on a large scale. This resulted in understanding many things that we had no idea about before. Today we know that the Milky Way itself can have more than eleven billion exoplanets associated with two hundred billion stars, which is a number that does not fit in existing ideas about outer space. After taking into account the so-called red dwarfs, i.e. stars with a much lower brightness than an ordinary star, the number of planets that can be qualified as exoplanets increased to thirty-three billion. Even if they are approximate data, it is striking by their magnitude. This indicates an even greater likelihood of finding not only life on them, but also the existence of intelligent beings.
The problem of the existence of other extraterrestrial civilizations has become the subject of essenceism in the search for the possibility of repairing our civilization. Currently, some scientists are of the opinion that if somewhere in the universe there would be a civilization of intelligent beings, then probably people similar to us should live there. The laws of physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology, the widespread operation of which have been noticed as a result of space research, would make those civilizations similar to ours. For example, fish living in the waters of other planets would be the same as ours. The same is true of all nature, including humans.
As a result of these discoveries, there is also a desire to get on a rocket carrying the right space vehicle and to examine if there is a civilization similar to ours somewhere in space. The closest object in our galaxy promising some hope for finding life is a set of stars and planets called Kepler 62. However, I would like to inform you that traveling there by a state-of-the-art spaceship would take 200,000 years, which is much longer than the duration of the mainstream of our civilization known so far. Let's forget about this type of travel and be content with information that reaches us at the speed of light.
For now, it is worth noting that the probability of intelligent life somewhere in the universe is quite real and that there may be many such places. The calculus of probability shows that in our galaxy alone, there can be more than thirty planets on which intelligent beings can live. That is why science so intensively studies the cosmos, using the knowledge of the most talented astronomers and the best equipment. If we add to this the study of the sources of energy and matter in the so-called hadron colliders, we can hope to learn about the basic processes of formation of the most important phenomena in the universe. It is about the path of changes from its peculiar initial state, through the appearance of base particles of matter, and ending with an intelligent being, which is man. So I hope that the world will soon be informed that we are not alone in the universe.