In this fascinating and cutting-edge work, Dr. Ben Bova explores one of the most thrilling and elemental questions humanity has ever posed: Are we alone? From Copernicus to the advent of SETI and beyond, Bova takes his readers on a tour of the scientific and political battles fought in the pursuit of knowledge and speculates on what the future may hold.
Can life exist outside the planet Earth? The first question one should ask is: How is it possible for life to exist within Earth's brutal confines? On our own world, creatures exist -- and thrive -- in environments first thought to be completely alien and inhospitable. From the rare air of the upper atmosphere to the depths of the oceans, life persists amid crushing pressures, crippling heat, and absolute darkness. Bacteria brought to the moon have survived for years without water, at temperatures near absolute zero, and in spite of radiation levels that would kill human observers. With such resilient and tenacious creatures, it seems that life could spring up, and survive, anywhere.
Many skeptics believe that finding life outside our solar system will never occur within our lifetime -- but perhaps it's unnecessary to look that far. Our neighboring planets may already serve as havens for extraterrestrial life. Scientists have already identified ice caps on Mars and what appears to be an enormous ocean underneath the ice of Jupiter's moons. The atmosphere on Venus appeared harsh and insupportable of life, composed of a toxic atmosphere and oceans of acid -- until scientists concluded that Earth's atmosphere was eerily similar billions of years ago. An extraterrestrial colony, in some form, may already exist, just awaiting discovery.
With the development of new technology, such as the space-based telescopes of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), we may not have to leave the comfort of our home world to discover proof of life elsewhere. But the greatest impediment to such an important scientific discovery may not be technological, but political. No scientific endeavor can be launched without a budget, and matters of money are within the arena of politicians. Dr. Bova explores some of the key players and the arguments waged in a debate of both scientific and cultural priorities, showing the emotions, the controversy, and the egos involved in arguably the most important scientific pursuit ever begun.
Faint Echoes, Distant Stars
By Bova, BenWilliam Morrow & Company
ISBN: 038097519XChapter One
Are We Alone?
It goes against nature in a large field to
grow only one shaft of wheat, and in an
infinite universe to have only one living
world.
--Metrodorus of ChiosCirca 400 B.C.
What is the history of life?
Are we alone in the universe?
What is the future of life?
Is life a normal part of the universe,or is our Earth the only worldthat harbors living creatures?
Children ask, "Where did I com from?" Stargazers wonder if there islife on any of the fiery specks that dot the night sky. Philosophers ponder the meaning of life and seek to understand our place in the greateruniverse that surrounds us.
These questions haunt our consciousness today, as they have forcountless millennia. Human beings have always wondered about howlife began and whether life exists beyond th Earth. The quest for life elsewhere in the universe is far older than written history.
THE ALIENS AMONG US
Since the beginning of human existence our ancestors have populatedthe world with powerful supernatural creatures. The earliest writings weknow of deal with gods and goddesses who are obviously much morepowerful than mere mortals and who inhabit realms far beyond thismundane world in which you and I live.
Try to see the world as our prehistoric Ice Age ancestors did. Living insmall tribes of hunters and gatherers, following the game herds acrossthe land, they faced a world of terrifying dangers. Powerful lions andleopards stalked the night. When they sought shelter in caves, often asnot a ferocious cave bear would mangle them with its sharp claws andpowerful, crushing teeth.Hunger was a constant threat; wild fires, bewildering attacks of disease, a broken bone, even childbirth was dangerous.
Those early hunting/gathering tribes saw no difference between theanimate and inanimate. To them, everything was alive: trees, rocks,clouds, animals -- specially the animals they hunted for food and thepredators who hunted them. Each and all had their own individualspirit.
They did not feel alone in a cold and uncaring universe. If anything, there were too many other creatures, real and imagined, sharing the world with them. They must have felt overwhelmed by spirits that weremuch more powerful than themselves. On the walls of their caves theydrew hauntingly beautiful pictures of the animals they lived among, probably in an effort to gain som sort of mystical control over thosewild beasts, or at least to ease som of the fear they felt when facing theanimals 'fangs and antlers with nothing more than primitive weapons ofwood and bone.
And they watched the night sky. Paleontologists have discovered abone with th phases of the Moon carved into it, dating back 30,000years.
FROM AKHENATON TO ZEUS
Farmers depend on the weather. So much so that the earliest farmersbelieved that the forc s of the weather -- wind, rain, sun -- were gods whoneeded to be propitiated by prayers, sacrifices, and fertility rites. The ideathat there were beings who were more than human, beings much morepowerful than themselves, was well-entrenched in them by the time agriculture began to irrevocably change human society some 12,000 years ago.
In ancient Egypt the Sun was worshiped as a god. One of the earliest prayers we know of is attributed to the Pharaoh Akhenaton (circa 1370 B.C.),a prayer to the Sun that gave life to the world, which he called Aton:
Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of the sky,
O living Aton, beginning of life.
When thou risest in the eastern horizon,
Thou fillest every land with thy beauty.
Even wild nomadic tribes such as th Achaeans, who invaded and conquered the land we now call Greece, worshiped gods of the sky and the weather. Zeus, the chief god of their pantheon, was originally a stormgod. The thunderbolt was his sign and his weapon.
Farming also depends on the seasons, and farming societies began to study the stars in an effort to predict when they should plant their crops. In ancient Egypt, where the Nile's annual flood brought fresh, fertile siltto the parched land, it was vital to know when the Nile would rise. The Egyptians learned that when the bright star Sirius rose just before dawn, the river's flood was only a matter of days away. In cloudy,dank, chilly Britain, Stone Age farmers somehow managed to build gigantic megalithic circles such as Stonehenge, which served as astronomical computers that predicted the seasons, most importantly the spring equinox, the time to plant the summer's crops. Eventually, our ancestors invented agriculture.
FROM ASTROLOGY TO LUCRETIUS
It was only natural for people to believe that the heavens had an important influence on their lives. They did! Curious thinkers wondered why this was so and how these influences could be predicted, interpreted, andused for practical everyday affairs.
Thus was born the ancient art of astrology, which attempts to predict the events of an individual's life by considering the positions of the stars and planets. It doesn't really work, but to this day most newspapers andmany Internet sites carry a daily horoscope column based on ideas that were hoary with age in Julius Caesar's time.
The ancients also cam to believe that the realm of the stars must be very different from th Earth on which we live. A mental separation between Earth and sky arose, a separation that would have seemed strange to the Ice Age hunting tribes. To the average citizen of ancientAthens or Rome, this world of ours was an imperfect place, filled with pain and unhappiness.
Continues...Excerpted from Faint Echoes, Distant Starsby Bova, Ben Excerpted by permission.
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