Exoplanets echo Earth's mundanity amid search for alien life
Planets similar to Earth orbit around stars. This is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular astronomical discoveries of the past two years. Seth Shostak, an astronomer from the SETI Institute in California, says that our world, at least from a geological standpoint, is about as mundane as pigeons.
Exoplanets were discovered thanks to the Kepler telescope back in 2010. It was at that time astronomers were able to confirm that planets with a geological structure similar to Earth's orbit some stars.
Five years later, fascinated by the potential for extraterrestrial life, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner invested $100 million (CAD 140 million) in the SETI Institute, which subsequently began working on a new project called Breakthrough Listen.
Scientists examined about 100,000 galaxies for the presence of Type III civilizations. However, as emphasized by G-HATU creator Jason Wright, who National Geographic quoted, added that none of them are inhabited by an alien civilization using most of the starlight in their galaxy for their own purposes.
However, researchers noted that the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations in a much less developed form was indicated by studies of at least 50 galaxies.
Wright emphasized that it cannot be ruled out that large stellar empires occupy entire stretches of space, which are nevertheless too small for us to detect.
The results of research conducted as part of the Breakthrough Listen project were also quite shocking.
On October 19, 2017, the Pan-STARRS telescope from the Haleakalā Observatory in Hawaii recorded what was most likely the first interstellar object to visit our solar system, as shared on the National Geographic website.
Scientists named it Oumuamua, meaning "scout" in Hawaiian, and observed it for 11 days to gather as much information as possible. Their findings were surprising.
ʻOumuamua must have been designed, built, and launched by an extraterrestrial intelligence, summarized Avi Loeb, head of Harvard's astronomy department.
He added that it is possible this civilization no longer exists but had sent a spacecraft into space.
The scientist said in one of the interviews that they sent Voyager I and Voyager II. There could be quite a bit of equipment there, it might be a message in a bottle; we should be open to different possibilities, he said in one of the interviews.
