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ALIENS

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ALIENS

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Some interesting facts about extraterrestrial life

Although there is not yet any scientific proof that (intelligent) life exists on other planets in the universe, there is a huge possibility that it does, although opinions vary widely. Some astronomers estimate the probability to be quite high. The number of galaxies runs into the billions, and each galaxy is itself made up of billions of stars. It has now been shown that most stars have one or more planets. It is therefore plausible that the number of planets is a multiple of the number of stars and runs into the trillions. Depending on what the right conditions are for life to be possible, for example the presence of water, the number of planets with life will range from one (the Earth itself), to possibly hundreds of millions. The factors leading to a rough estimate of the number of planets with (intelligent) life are brought together in Drake's equation. Based on this equation, the universe should be full of life. But it turns out that for life to arise, an incredible amount of situations and conditions must be exactly matched. If just one condition is not met, then no life arises. Yet it is highly unlikely that only on planet Earth were or are all the conditions present that made the emergence of life possible.

SETI

The plan to search for extraterrestrial radio signals was mooted as early as the 1970s by Carl Sagan and others, but due to lack of funds, nothing ever came of it. In 1996, the intention arose at NASA to get serious about searching for extraterrestrial life. David Gedye and Craig Kasnoff designed a plan to investigate extraterrestrials. Their idea received a lot of support from academies but needed much further development. By 1998, the plan had reached the point where funds were raised for further elaboration. In 2000, NASA was able to launch the SETI Project. SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, is a project that uses sensitive radio telescopes to search for signals from space that have characteristics showing that they could have been caused by an extraterrestrial civilization. So far without any results. Therefore, many researchers think that - if there is life at all - it consists mostly of microorganisms or of lowly developed multicellular organisms, and intelligent life is probably even more rare. After all: life has existed on Earth for billions of years, while there has only been life for a few thousand years that we call “intelligent,” and that intelligent life has only for about a century been sending signals that could be received elsewhere and referred to as “intelligent.

Green males

In the 1950s, “Green men” became popular in the context of the many sightings of flying saucers. The existence of these extraterrestrial spaceships was highly controversial, to say the least. And precisely because their existence was strongly denied, many believed that the truth was being concealed by governments, which became the basis for an endless series of conspiracy theories. In this atmosphere, the “Little Green Men” were able to grow into a globally recognizable stereotype as the crew of flying saucers. Later, the little green men took on a different appearance and color, usually depicted with a large head and big black eyes, but still usually with a “humanoid” body.

Do they exist or do they not?

No one can answer this question. There have been thousands of accounts of people claiming to have seen aliens, and even to have been abducted by aliens, but whether these stories are based on reality or imagination cannot be scientifically determined.

Translated from Dutch to English with DeepL.com

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