This column was provided by San Benito resident and amateur astronomer David Baumgartner as part of a local series on astronomy. Lea este articulo en español aqui.
The other day a good friend of mine mentioned that he and his wife had a few friends over for a get-together. He said that a few questions came up about astronomy and that my name came up with the thought that I could probably answer some of their questions.
Well, the first thing that came to my mind was, “Did he lose my number, for why weren’t we invited?” But I was nice and bit my tong, which wasn’t easy to do.
He said the big question they argued about was, “Is there alien life out there?” What did I think? Well, I told him what I thought, about his questions that is. As we were parting, I asked him if he knew where I could buy a bottle of Tequila Mix. He asked, “What is that for?” I told him we are having a few friends over for a get-together and went on my way. The funny thing was that in the following days I got into the same conversation with a couple of other people. So I thought maybe I should run the article of mine that BenitoLink ran a couple of years ago that had to do with this same subject. So here you go:
Since the beginning of time, when man first walked the earth and looked up into the dark night sky, they must have wondered, “What are all these bright lights all about? Where did they come from?” Not having the answers, they would turn to one of their gods for the credit or the reason for everything unresolved. Sometimes it would be because the gods were pleased with the people, or upset with something they would have done. When that problem was satisfied, they would go on to the next adventure, hoping their god would be pleased.
As time went by, our ancestors would learn more of the answers to their questions. They became more aware of their surroundings. They learned to read and write, which helped them to remember their findings as they wrote them down and passed this information on to their children and their children’s children and finally on to us. I just wish their writings would have been a little more specific on some of their accomplishments, such as the Egyptian Pyramids, and many of the other great structures around the world. Structures built by them with primitive tools? Many of these jobs we couldn’t even build today with our more advanced tools. Did they have help? And if so, then by who? Were they a super race with super intelligence and sophisticated equipment living just over the hill? And where did they go? Or (now I’m reading your mind) did they come from outside our Earth’s envelope far, far away? And if so, then where? And why don’t we have any evidence left behind of them being here other than these fantastic buildings? These are just some of the questions I had as a young lad growing up that are still unanswered today by me or by anyone else. See, we aren’t much different today than our ancestors were so many years ago. The more we learn the more questions we have that are unanswered. I’m sure some of us today still turn to God for the credit or the reason for the unknowns. So how about Aliens for the answer? We can’t leave them out of this equation. Either way, all it does is provide us with more questions.
Many people believe in at least some form of Aliens existing somewhere. But that is where our knowledge of Aliens comes to a halt. Does our government know more than they let on? I believe so. Have Aliens lived among us from the beginning of our existence? I’m not sure. Genetically, are we the offspring of some ancient traveling Aliens, not unlike sailors’ docking at ports around the world spreading their DNA? And are we some kind of experiment by our great great Grandfathers from other worlds? So many unanswered questions. Will we ever know the answers?
My thinking has always been that I want to believe that these intelligent aliens with good intentions are out there ready to visit and share all their universal knowledge with us. With this in mind, we could shorten our learning timetable and live out our lives without the concern of world hunger, diseases and, of course, war ending all life as we know it. We always hear stories about Aliens, with smiles on their light green faces, coming to our front door and asking to take them to our leader. Not so fast. Do you really think these Aliens, with their unbelievable knowledge and power, are here for the benefit of our mankind? I don’t think so. If it turns out we are related to them in any way, then we had better be very careful. The apple doesn’t fall far…..well you know how that goes. Maybe it would be a good idea, for now, to back off looking for them. We might get more than we bargained for.
O.K., this scenario is all well and good, but I left out just one small mark at the end of my “Want to believe” list, and that would be an “asterisk” (*) symbol. This would stand for somewhat of a contingent. A contingent on needing solid evidence that at least some of this story is true and had actually happened.
There are many people out there that don’t believe any of this Alien garbage, it’s all “Fake News.” I’m sorry I had to put that in there. But there is so much information out there that it is hard to disprove, such as all the unbelievable construction that went on thousands of years ago. Give me some solid prof that Aliens do exist and that could persuade someone like me, who is on the fence, wanting to become a believer.
So why don’t we just ask these Aliens all of our question and get the answers we need to know right now? Oh, that’s right; we don’t know if they really exist or not, or do we? We have been sending information out into space for over a hundred years now in the form of radio and television signals, and today searching with the Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI), letting anyone who has the ability to tune in, learn all about our civilization and get in touch with us. So why haven’t they? Listening to the “Big Band Ara” and “I Love Lucy” should tell them everything they need to know about us. Maybe that’s why we haven’t heard from them yet. But traveling the speed of light for over a hundred years would only get you out around 100 light years from Earth, only covering a small area of our Milky Way, which is about 100 million light years across. So it might be a long time before anyone gets back to us.
What is the chance there is anyone out there? Are we so special and unique that we believe we are the only ones, all alone? It would be naïve of us, to say the least, thinking that we are the only ones that existed in this vast universe we live in. Do you suppose there is a scientific formula to figure out if there is life or not in the Milky Way as we know it? Well, I’m glad you asked. Because, in 1961, Astronomer Frank Drake came up with an equation to estimate how many detectable extraterrestrial civilizations might exist in our galaxy. Each variable equation is a crucial factor for the development of alien life. Changing just one figure in Drake’s formula could give us a dramatic change in the outcome. Let’s see what he came up with, with “N” equaling his answer.
N= X0 = number of new stars born per year, X1 = % of stars with planets, X2 = habitable planets, X3 = % planets develops life, X4 = % planets developing intelligence, X5 = % chance life communicates across space, X6 = length of time civilization sends signals into space, and X7 = amount of time civilization could re-develop after complete devastation.
Later on, Astronomer Seager revised Drake’s formula with an update to N=N*FQFHZFOFLFS. O.K., what is your answer? Oh, you need more time? That’s understandable. Mr. Drake, using his formula, came up with 10 communicating civilizations in our galaxy and 1,500 billion in the entire universe. Is that what you came up with? I came up with the same number. Based on today’s estimates, from what we know now, the number was something less than 924,000 for the universe. Still an awful lot of Aliens to think may come and visit us some day. Or, again, have they already?
But wait, I look back and think of all the Y’s in the road life had to take on its journey here on Earth to get us to where we are today. Quite an incredible journey we made. Maybe we are special and are all alone in this very lonely dark universe, how sad. To support this special theory of us being alone, all I have to do is replace any one of those numbers in Astronomers Drake’s or Seager”s formula with a zero and the ending number would be 0. Oh wait, wouldn’t that eliminate Earth as well? Maybe I should re-think this.
So what did we learn here? I’m not sure we learned anything different than what we knew at the beginning of this article. We knew that there could be life out there somewhere. We knew that they could be somewhat intelligent as we are. Has this intelligent life ever visited us in the past, or are they among us today? Again, where is the proof? I’m ready to believe.
I do know one thing we learned. And that is in the form of another question, “Is life in the cosmos easily begun, and commonplace, as it may have occurred here on Earth? Or is life incredibly simple?” I guess we can file that with the rest of our questions.
We keep learning more about this puzzling universe as we venture out into the unknown. Most of what we learn turns out to be very strange to us. One of the rarest and most unusual things in the cosmos might be “us.” And maybe that’s all we can expect to learn for now. But I guaranty you one thing; that there’s a lot more to come to this story, a lot more…
Clear Skies….
What’s up this month?
June 2024
June 2: Moon is at perigee (228,728 miles from Earth)
Jun 2: Moon passes 2° north of Mars
Jun 4: Mercury passes 0.1° south of Jupiter
Jun 4: Moon passes 4° north of Uranus
Jun 5: Moon passes 5° north of Jupiter
Jun 6: New Moon
Jun 13: Moon passes 0.5° south of asteroid Juno
Jun 14: First Quarter Moon
Jun 14: Moon is at apogee (251,082 miles from Earth)
Jun 16: Moon passes 1.2° north of Spica
Jun 20: Moon passes 0.3° north of Antares
Jun 20: Summer solstice
Jun 21: Full Moon
Jun 23: Moon passes 1.0° north of dwarf planet Ceres
Jun 27: Moon is at perigee (229,464 miles from Earth
Jun 27: Moon passes 0.08° north of Saturn
Jun 28: Moon passes 0.03° north of Neptune
Jun 28: Last quarter Moon
Jun 29: Mercury passes 5° south of Pollux
Jun 30: Saturn is stationary