Scientists are always new discoveries about our universe. Recently, a new find was made, right here in our own solar system – the tenth planet.  Some time ago, scientists discovered that the universe seems to be expanding.  It seems clear that more discoveries will be made.  However, the ultimate discovery would surely be that of finding life beyond the Earth.  However, is there life beyond the Earth?  Are we alone?

There have been quite a lot of efforts to find alien life.  So far, like the search for god, there has been no convincing evidence that there is any.  However, there are good reasons why there could be.

In 1987, scientists observed a supernova in our “neighbouring” galaxy, called “The Large Magellanic Cloud”.   The distance of this galaxy has been calculated to be at approximately 190,000 light years from Earth.  Light travels at 1,079,252,848.8 kilometers per hour or 9,454,254,955,488 kilometers per year.  Therefore, a light year is almost 9.5 trillion kilometers long!  Even then, we here on Earth are only seeing this supernova after it happened 190,000 years ago!  And this is a “nearby” galaxy!  Some of the more distant objects that scientists can see are 18,000,000,000 light years away, or 18,000,000,000 X 9,500,000,000,000 kilometers away!

Our understanding of other worlds and solar systems are young and growing.  Until the 1990s, scientists only knew of our solar system (as having a star with orbiting planets).  However, in 1995, two scientists discovered a star with a planet orbiting it – another solar system.  The star has been call “51 Pegasi”.  The long established view that ours was the only solar system was forever proven false.  It is very clear that there are other worlds out there, waiting to be discovered by us “Earthlings”.

Intensive efforts are underway to detect intelligent life elsewhere.  One such organization that is involved in this search is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI.  This is a non-profit organization that is based in the United States.  It has developed signal processing technology, which it uses in attempts to pick up signals from deep space.  SETI processes about 28 million different frequencies, in the hope that some alien signal may be found.  The SETI programme also has hundreds of telescopes scanning the heavens for signs of alien life.

Some people are quick to dismiss these efforts as a waste of time.  They claim that no “sensible” radio signals have been detected; therefore, there is no alien life out there. However, we should not be so quick to dismiss these efforts.  Intelligent radio signal will only be “intelligent” as we know it.  If there are alien life out there, there is no certainty that, as far as we know or accustomed to, their signals may be “intelligent”, “radio” or even “detectable”.  Most people expect alien life to be the typical “little green men flying in disk-shaped saucers”, but they could be in a form totally unknown or even unexpected.  We just simply don’t know and we certainly are in no position to predict their composition.

How can anybody convincingly claim that there are no other forms of life in the universe is simply beyond me.  It is true that we have no proof that alien life exists.  However, we have proof that we exist.  This, to me, is proof enough that there must be life out there.  The universe is simply too large for us to be alone.  Who knows, maybe our planet and solar system have already been “discovered” by some alien life trying to find out if it is alone.