The Universe in a Nutshell 2

Stephen Hawking is at it again! Streaming astrophysical nonsense into the minds of everyday human beings! This time, the topic is: are we alone? There are many different reasons why we may not be the only life that exists in the universe. Or is the problem that we believe there is only one universe? Are there other universes out there? Dr. Hawking puts forth many ideas in his book The Universe in a Nutshell.

Are there possibly aliens in our universe? When you think about how vast the universe is, the possibilities are endless! We have not seen the edge of our universe, so we have no idea where the universe ends! Not only that, but the universe is always expanding! Therefore, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. There are billions of stars, and any of them could have planets around them. Even though the universe is so large, there are many details that have to be in effect to support life.

The best way to think about it is by looking at what life on Earth needs to survive. Life requires liquid water to survive, at least on our planet. That in itself is hard to find on any other planet. Earth has liquid water on the surface because it is not too close to sun, and not too far away. It is in a safe zone, so to speak. Another thing that life requires is some sort of atmosphere to protect it. Our Earth has an atmosphere that includes many things that life needs. Oxygen is important to life on Earth. Without our atmosphere, we would have no oxygen, so we would die!

Another thing the atmosphere does is acts as a filter. Most life on Earth requires the Sun's light and heat to survive, but there is a limit. Too much radiation can kill life. That is why the ozone layer is so important. If too much heat reaches the surface of the Earth, the entire Earth would be a vast desert, with no oceans at all. That would not be good for life, now would it? Everything that makes up our Earth came from the supernova of a star. It is not very likely that another planet will be produced with the right combination of elements to make up an atmosphere like ours.

Another factor that we do not often think about is the Earth's magnetic field. The core of our Earth is divided into two parts: a liquid and a solid core. The liquid core flows around the solid core to produce the magnetic field. The significance of the magnetic field is that it protects the earth from all sorts of space junk and debris. The chances that another planet will have such an effective magnetic field is very slim.

When you consider all of the requirements, life somewhere else seems very unlikely. However, there may be ways around many of these requirements. Even on Earth, there are chemo-synthetic life forms that live in the deep ocean. These microorganisms do not need light to live, just certain chemicals from the rock. Perhaps there are chemo-synthetic aliens somewhere in the universe. Or maybe there is life that does not need water somewhere else.

What if we expand the possibilities a little bit. What if there are more "universes" than just ours. What if beyond our universe was a vast sea of universes, all with different laws of physics? Although there is no real way to know for sure, I don't think there are any more universes than our own. If there were other universes, it might have crashed into ours by now. I think that ours is alone, but that's my opinion. Dr. Hawking believes there are others, connected to ours by wormholes.

I do not think there are other universes, but I do think there could be other life. However, because of the probability of having life on a planet is so slim, the life is probably somewhere very far away. Most likely, we will not meet other life forms because of how far away they would probably be. I for many reasons hope we don't meet other life forms.

If we meet aliens, they will probably be more advanced than we are. They would have to come from such a long distance that they would need a great amount of technology to get here. They would likely take over the human race, and that would be no good! Dr. Hawking agrees in that regard. Also, if the aliens are weaker than us, we will probably eliminate them, getting rid of more life forms, rather than trying to be diplomatic with them for our benefit.

All in all, it is very unlikely that we will meet any other life forms. I think that it is quite possible for there to be other life out there, but not in other universes, just in ours. I do not want humans to come in contact with other forms of life because it would probably result in our destruction. That's my view of aliens in a nutshell.