Brief Answers To The Big Questions

Brief Answers To The Big Questions tackles some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, as Hawking explores the laws that govern the cosmos and the future of humankind.

Aliens have always been a fascination for us earthlings. That’s why so many Hollywood films have cashed in on the extraterrestrial invasion theme. A good portion of video gaming is designed with the objective to kill space invaders. 

What are the chances that intelligent life actually exists beyond Earth? Chances are pretty good when you consider that at the time our little blue planet was formed our universe was celebrating its seven billionth birthday. So it’s not inconceivable that multiple alien civilizations could have risen and colonized their region of space before we even discovered fire. 

It’s even more of a possibility when you consider that approximately twenty percent of all stars have planets that fall into what’s referred to as the “Goldilocks Zone”. This is an area capable of sustaining life since it is neither too hot, or too cold. So with roughly 200 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, this translates to about forty billion planets that have ideal, earth-like conditions. 

This does not necessarily imply that this alien life is all intelligent. Life might be common, but beings with heightened intelligence is likely to be very rare. Our planet Earth is also overdue for a devastating interstellar collision. Other life-sustaining planets might not have been so lucky.

Now let’s bring this next topic a little bit closer to home and turn our attention to life on planet Earth. The truth is that our planet is faced with numerous threats and the chances of long-term sustainability look bleak. These threats can be divided into those that we can control, and those that we can’t. ned in the last lesson, our planet is way overdue for an asteroid collision. This is obviously a cataclysmic event where we have no control, at least not at this time, given our limited technology to divert such a catastrophe. We should then focus our energy on threats that we can control, like climate change – our most immediate threat. Our current state of global emissions is unsustainable, but there’s much more that threatens our life as we know it. Rising ocean temperatures will cause our polar ice caps to melt. These smaller ice caps will, in turn, reduce the amount of solar energy reflected back into space, further heating the planet and eventually leaving behind an Uninhabitable Earth. In the planets present state, it’s a good bet the Earth will be devastated by either a nuclear war or some environmental disaster within the next thousand years. Hopefully, by that time humanity will have the technology…