今週の英語トピック - Are We Alone?
English topic of the week
Did you see Close Encounters of the Third Kind? The tagline for that movie was "We are not alone." Almost all of us have seen aliens, ranging from Tribbles in Star Trek to Wookies in Star Wars to Mork from the planet Ork and many others. If you have never heard of Mork from the planet Ork, you can find information about Mork, an alien played by Robbin Williams, at The Internet Movie Database.
We do not know, however, if there are real aliens out there. Some people say there are aliens out there and have proof. They are either psychologically disturbed or there is a coverup that makes Watergate look like child's play. Most people tend to believe it is the former. Others look at the size of the universe and think that this vastness must have intelligent life somewhere. Others look at the conditions necessary for intelligent life including being the right distance from a sun for proper warmth, having a moon at the right location to have the seasons controlled, a large neighbor like Jupiter to protect the planet, enough carbon and metal, and a stable orbit. They conclude that there may not be other intelligent life out there. Paleontologist Peter Ward and astronomer Donald Brownlee discuss this in their book, "Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe."
You can read about their hypothesis at Wikipedia. We have quoted part of the page here:
The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the emergence of complex life required a host of fortuitous circumstances. A number of such circumstances are set out below under the following headings: galactic habitable zone, a central star and planetary system having the requisite character, the circumstellar habitable zone, the size of the planet, the advantage of a large satellite, conditions needed to assure the planet has a magnetosphere and plate tectonics, the chemistry of the lithosphere, atmosphere, and oceans, the role of "evolutionary pumps" such as massive glaciation and rare bolide impacts, and whatever led to the still mysterious Cambrian explosion of animal phyla. The emergence of intelligent life may have required yet other rare events.
In order for a small rocky planet to support complex life, Ward and Brownlee argue, the values of several variables must fall within narrow ranges. The universe is so vast that it could contain multiple Earth-like planets. But if such planets exist, they are likely to be separated from each other by many thousands of light years. Such distances may preclude communication among any intelligent species evolving on such planets, which would solve the Fermi paradox.
Please click the link above if you would like to read more. This is a fascinating topic, and many of us look forward to a definitive answer with proof. This may never happen though.
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