Changing How We Think About Exploring Space
We are like babes in the woods when it comes to what to expect when we decide to explore other planets. We tend to compare everything we see to our own planet, even comparing what extraterrestrials might do if we met some. This comparison is made to what we might do and that could be a big mistake. We have no idea of the alien thought process, or the ethics they believe in. For all we know it might be their practice to sacrifice one or more of the newcomers they meet to bless the meeting.
If the evidence we have found really points to the fact extraterrestrials have been around for thousands of years and longer and having contact with ancient civilizations, why did some of these cultures practice human sacrifice? Wouldn’t you think extraterrestrials would have taught them that this was wrong? Could this be an indication the aliens have a different set of ethics than we have? Could it be there are some extraterrestrials who just think of us the way we think of cattle? We use them for food but have no particular feelings for them one way or the other.
When we go to an alien world we just might find things are completely different than they seem. What look like familiar things to us might just be very alien. Take the idea of exploring a new planet for example. As we walk thought the dense brush of the new world, could it turn out what we thought of as plants was really a strange new type of animal life and it might even be poisonous. Just because it looked like plants does necessarily mean it is a plant.
We are very excited about seeing water on other worlds because we equate water with life. Just because water on our world is teeming with life doesn’t mean it will also have life in it on other planets. For all we know what we think is the same type of water we have on earth, doesn’t mean we are correct in that assumption. There could be something different about it making it unsuitable for living creatures. What we might believe is water could even turn out to be something else resembling water.
We have this propensity to think a planet must be in roughly the same area as the earth from its star give or take the power of the star. If the star is more powerful than the Goldilocks area, that is where we think the planet would have to be in relation to the star to sustain life, has to be adjusted. We don’t really know if any of this is true. We do think we know this however. There could be so many other features which might account for life on a planet.
It is possible there are many forms of life just waiting to be discovered which don’t adhere to these rules. Our definition of life might turn out to be very limited. First of all, alien life could even be unrecognizable to us. We might think we are looking at a stone and it might be a creature. There are a few species of animals on this planet, especially in the ocean which look more like plants than the animals they are. If we have stuff like that here, this should alert us to the fact there could even be way more creatures on an extraterrestrials planet which we could get wrong. There might even be creatures which look like rocks but are actually alive.
Many scientists get excited when they find an exoplanet which has a similar atmosphere to earth. Maybe they shouldn’t, because it could turn out there might be fewer inhabited planets like that than others which we think can’t sustain life, but which turn out to be the most populated of all.
Recently we found a rogue brown star. Rogue refers to the fact it is flying through space and the theory states it was bumped out of position by some body. This might turn out to not be true. Just because we believe something is true doesn’t make it so. Some of these rogue bodies which are on their own traveling along in space, might surprise us. Perhaps some could even have life. If a rogue planet has a hot center it might be enough to make nice conditions on the surface and with those conditions life might spring up. There is even another possibility, and that is life might spring up no matter what the conditions. I don’t believe life is married to ideal conditions at all. Life has been found in space. Algae flew through space and landed up on the windows of the space station and it is alive. Who knows what else could exist in space?
There could be beings which don’t have to breathe. Their bodies could function completely differently than ours. There were a couple of times cosmonauts and astronauts saw aliens. When the astronauts talked to a tall alien in the bay of the space shuttle, it had no breathing apparatus noticeable. This was also seen back at NASA by a few people who saw the meeting on a monitor. The cosmonauts saw giant vaporous aliens floating outside their window on the Soviet space station and it was said they were not wearing spacesuits. This indicates the atmosphere may not matter sometimes when it come to spawning life. The same might be true of temperature. This fact has already been proven on earth by animals who survive being frozen like some fish and others which survive the boiling water of hot vents in the ocean.
There is even what I call an incredible theory from a few people who think there could even be life on the sun. I am open minded, but I don’t believe life could be that tough. I do however think, it might be able to survive a very hot world, maybe even a flaming one.
We have to be prepared to change the way we think about life when we start exploring and not eliminate worlds from exploration just because humans could not survive on them. We also have to realize extraterrestrials might be able to exist underwater and in the clouds of alien planets. Then there is the big one, I call it. That is where we have to think bigger because there may be some beings who can come into our reality and leave just as easily because they travel through dimensions and they could even be on our world now. They might be the person sitting next to us on the train or at the restaurant.