We await in peace

Looking up at the thousands or millions of stars humans have always wondered, are we alone in the Universe? This may sound like a unnecessary or even blasphemous question to some, but it is one worth exploring. We have evolved on a rock called Earth, where life competes to survive everyday. It's extremely likely life is, on another planet, competing to exist just the same.

Stories of life on other planets coming to visit Earth has always been a popular topic. Roswell, New Mexico, the site of a controversially reported landing of an extra-terrestrial UFO, is a commonly known icon for alien encounters. Reports of people being abducted and such surface with some regularity, but are met with scepticism and are rightfully so.

Life has been shown to exist in some relatively inhospitable environments, even here on Earth. When a NASA-led expedition drilled into a lake under the Antarctic Ice Shelf, they stumbled upon a Lyssianasid Amphipod, a shrimp like creature, living within its depth. Meanwhile, on the other extreme, very deep within the Oceans, there exist vents from Earth's internal volcanic activity. The water is heated to approximately 400° Celsius, not much cooler than average temperatures on Venus, the hottest planet in the Solar System. In this ecosystem, where no light penetrates from the Sun, worms, crabs and even fish, white as ghosts, live comfortably.

With life existing in these extreme conditions, why wouldn't life exist on a planet like Venus or Mars, the latter having an approximate temperature range of -83 to -20° Celsius. Should the right conditions exist, why couldn't life such as the Amphipod discovered deep under Antarctica thrive in this environment? This is one question a team of Russian researchers wish to answer empirically. They plan to send a spacecraft to one of Mars' moons with a package full of bacteria and microorganisms, the most interesting of which are tardigrades, also called Water Bears. These hardy creatures have been shown to survive extreme temperatures, hot and cold, the vacuum of space, and other inhospitable conditions.

NASA continues to send spacecrafts to Mars to look for water, basic elements and even life. With all of these experiments taking place we may find hospitable environments to send life, if it's not there already.

I don't expect to hear that we found a red version of human beings on the surface of Mars, but as evolutionary biology tells us, we too began from simple microorganisms, possibly even from basic building blocks which hitched a ride to Earth on an asteroid. Why couldn't there be microorganism life flourishing on an icy world like Jupiter's moon Europa, where a release from NASA reportedly found there to be an ocean-like body of water beneath the icy surface?

If there is intelligent life in the Universe, even far more intelligent and advanced than ours, why wouldn't we have met them yet? Aside from hearsay from a few abductees, we can safely assume that for every reason another complex life form has to visit there are many reasons simply not to. Not to mention the Universe is absolutely immense, possibly infinite, and visiting one planet in the maze of all of them, simply isn't a priority. It doesn't mean we should deny the existence of other life, or stop looking for it, but trust that one day we may meet extra-terrestrial life, and when that day comes we can offer them a beer and say hello.

Furthermore, if there is simple life on Jupiter's moon, or more complex life elsewhere, who's to say that intelligent life, much more complex and advanced than our own, doesn't exist on a distant planet in the Universe? There are literally billions of stars out there, many of which have been shown to likely have planets rotating around them.

Extra-terrestrial life may never come to Earth, and we very well may never find complex life on another planet. However, that won't stop me from looking up in the night sky and believing we aren't just another life form, on another planet, in another galaxy in this crazy place we call our Universe.