14 DAY TRIAL // After decades of fruitlessly trying to prove that extraterrestrial life exists, astronomers are finally revealing that this day of age could finally see us contacting other intelligent beings in the Universe. The President of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal in the United Kingdom, Lord Rees, says that the chance of discovering life among the stars is greater now than ever. He also recently spoke about the challenges that such a discovery would pose to our view of the world, and our place in the Universe. The official made this announcement just before astronomers gathered in London, to discuss the very prospect of discovering extra-terrestrial life, the BBC News reports.
“Technology has advanced so that for the very first time we can actually have the realistic hope of detecting planets no bigger than the Earth orbiting other stars. (We'll be able to learn) whether they have continents and oceans, learning what type of atmosphere they have. Although it is a long shot to be able to learn more about any life of them, then it's tremendous progress to be able to get some sort of image of another planet, rather like the earth orbiting another star,” Rees revealed.
For many years, scientists have been broadcasting radio signals into the vastness of space, hoping that they may hear a reply. Most of these messages contain codes showing any potential reader our location in space, as well as other basic information regarding our basic anatomy and societal organization. In response to all these attempts, all investigators managed to pick up were static noises, although some mysterious signals coming from unidentified sources were discovered, and have remained unexplained to this day. But now, the search is augmented by especially designed space telescopes, such as NASA's Kepler, which are able to detect very small exoplanets.
“Were we to find life, even the simplest life, elsewhere that would clearly be one of the great discoveries of the 21st Century. I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive. And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity, beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee,” Rees added. Indeed, it would be very difficult to predict exactly what type of impact finding intelligent extraterrestrial life would have on people and our society. Some will panic, some will welcome the news, and some will extend their nationalistic fervor to cover the entire planet. All that remains for us to do is wait and see, analysts say.