Are the scientists looking for this alien??
Posted on 05/26/2005 3:10:33 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Flying skywhales brought down by giant hornetlike creatures hunting through a shared intelligence ... trees stretching upward of half a mile and 40-foot fan-shaped plants that undulate toward the never-setting sun.
Science fiction or science fact?
Well, a little of both, according to the National Geographic Channel's captivating special Extraterrestrial, airing at 8 p.m. Sunday. This show has nothing to do with movies by Steven Spielberg or with studying possible clues that aliens are visiting planet Earth. It is far more fascinating. The show informs us that within a few years, in the lifetime of most of us now living, NASA will launch a Terrestrial Planet Finder observatory (actually, two of them) in an attempt to find out what, or who, is beyond our solar system.
As one scientist in the two-hour special says flat out: The probes and other scientific advancements will make this the century when we discover we are not alone. National Geographic commissioned scientists from universities, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in Mountain View, Calif., to create a likely scenario of what life might look like elsewhere.
The "creators" of these worlds are astrophysicists, biologists, biomechanists and astronomers who combine their knowledge with sophisticated 3-D and other special effects to create two planets they believe could exist in our own Milky Way galaxy. One they name Aurelia. It circles a red dwarf star. One side of the planet always faces this sun and is in perpetual daylight; the other side is in frozen darkness. The scientists who created it say Aurelia, with its watery lagoons populated by "stinger fans," "gulphogs" and "mudpods," is very much a possibility.
The second is named Blue Moon, a satellite orbiting a massive gaseous planet and heated by twin stars. It has much higher levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen than Earth, which translates to denser and heavier air in which really big things, like skywhales with 33-foot wingspans, can fly. Blue Moon is a violent place, with its "death trap" plants that kill with acid and its eagle-size, hornetlike "stalker scouts" that eat skywhales alive after hunting them through a shared intelligence.
Both glimpses will make viewers appreciate the fact that Earth does not have endless sunlight and that our oxygen levels are, well, less scary. Blue Moon's atmosphere is highly explosive.
The Blue Moon creation is "a world on the edge," meaning the scientists have taken their knowledge and run with it. But, they stress repeatedly, they follow the rules of creation and basic animal and plant design (as we know it), based on the latest scientific research and deep-space observations. This is riveting viewing as the scientists use the basic theory that all life, no matter where, needs water, and that carbon-based life equals DNA equals a complex web of life.
But they also believe that each story of creation will be different. We may not be alone, but what life is out there is unlikely to look anything like us.
It’s a cult of the search for life.
You realized that once we find a few dozen places with "life", all of it it remarkably similar to that known here (today or in the past), the Earth-alone evolution crowd are going to be in some real scientific difficulty.
Actually it is science fiction.
That's the bedrock of this cult.
It's out there!!
Haven't found it?
We haven't looked in the right place.
It is an endless search.
Not to the true believers.
To them, this will correct the religious notion of life.
No, it's not science. It's scientists using their imaginations to create a possibly entertaining TV show.
Seems to me that the religious view is that life originated elsewhere and that God brought it to Earth. The non-religious view is that life originated on Earth, and most likely ONLY on Earth, as some sort of cosmic accident.
Genesis actually has God placing life on Earth. Seems to me God is not prohibited from placing it elsewhere.
I consider very similar to the mind-set of Communism. "Communism works! It's the best system of government! It just hasn't been implemented properly yet! Let's try again!"
This is a show based on the belief there is life beyond Earth.
***....As one scientist in the two-hour special says flat out: The probes and other scientific advancements will make this the century when we discover we are not alone....***
Interesting analogy.
I wager the majority of these life cultists lean left to far left.
Are the scientists looking for this alien??
Really?
Now would this be human life or what?
I just read an article based on the belief, that there will be a cure for cancer someday.
America was discovered on the belief, that there is a shorter way to get to the far east.
Jules Verne wrote stories based on the belief, that man will walk on the moon one day.
What's so bad about that? If there were no belief of life beyond earth, nobody would look for it.
Cincinatus' Wife wrote:
Really?
Now would this be human life or what?
--> Dunno, maybe they're interested in studying my bathroom, once in a while something grows, then i gotta wipe it out of existance.
I'll believe in extraterestrial when i stumble over it. ;)
Life beyond Earth will be us.
And that is a belief and a goal.
I see that differently than the search for life.
LOL
Then there's
Your beliefs and goals are fine with me, but why do you feel the need to belittle the beliefs and goals of others?
Son, is that you? Hurry up or you'll miss the bus! Stop dawdling!
Because Carl Sagan's belief that NASA morph into a search for life engine, made it into the shell of its former self.
Maybe Mike Griffin can save it from extinction.
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