SETI

The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence

Science and Religion in School Unit 4b

Why bother looking?

Answer to some fundamental questions Sharing of knowledge

Medical Scientific Technological

Helping Mankind out of its current problems

Would they be any help?

Have been through the same problems as us and survived

Open to question

Why need they have had the same problems?

Why need their solutions work for us?

Why should they tell us?

Perhaps they got through by good fortune

Where to look?

Our own solar system? Highly unlikely - no evidence and space probes

have been most places

‘lower’ forms of life are a different matter Mars Europa

Mars

Traditionally thought of as a good candidate

Evidence of water on surface Atmosphere (thin) Historical (Percival Lowell)

Percival Lowell Thought Mars was inhabited and covered in

canals

May 22nd 1894 Boston Scientific Society

“The most self evident explanation from the markings themselves is probably the true one; namely, that in them we are looking upon the results of the work of some sort of intelligent beings”

He had not looked at Mars through a telescope by this stage

Set up an observatory in Flagstaff Arizona 1894

Lowell studied the

canals and the

seasonal variations in

the ice caps

Martians using the ice

from the poles to

irrigate desert areas of

the planet

Surface of Mars Now we have been to the surface

with robot probes (since the 1970s) We know what the surface is like No canals! However, we do think that there

was once water on Mars This water is now locked in as frost

under the surface

Evidence for water

The Face on Mars

Europa

A ‘dark horse’ candidate for life in our solar system

Surface appears to be ice Liquid ocean under the ice? Thin atmosphere detected

containing oxygen Possibly life has evolved in the

relative warmth of the ocean

Elsewhere? Growing evidence for planets

round other stars Around 100 ‘extra-solar’ planets

have now been observed If planets exist round other stars,

then the basic conditions for life being found elsewhere seems much more likely.

The search is now on for ‘Earth-like’ planets.

How do we look? Search for radio transmissions

from the stars Hard to separate from natural

sources There are a lot of stars to listen to!

Beam a single out from Earth and rely on them hearing us

Why nothing so far? Bad luck Lack of interest in us No one there

Consequences for Theology

Theology needs to incorporate the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe

Could impact on a variety of doctrines and faiths The Fall The Incarnation Re-incarnation Creationism Fundamentalism

Final thinking point

Alien life on Earth What if we were to create artificial intelligence in our

computers?