Aliens? Martians?

The other night, around a table with friends, one of whom is a pastor at a local church, I said that I believed that over the next 20 years we would find, confirm, or be found by, life that is not from this planet. I said it specifically to the pastor. I was curious about his response. I was being a provocateur. I was being "controversial". But I kind of meant it. (Although the 20 years part just came out, and on reflection, that sounds a bit soon - it'll probably take a few more years than that.)

Anyway, there are bona fide scientists looking, through powerful telescopes, at far away star clusters for planetary systems that include planets like Earth in their orbital relationship to a star like the sun. They're excited about it. On the February 26th episode of Quirks and Quarks Dr. Ray Jayawardhana, Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, talks about his work. He has a new book out, Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond our Solar System, which I probably won't read, but what's interesting to me is how serious and legitimate the whole endeavour has become.

All this brought to mind P.K. Dick's first published short story Beyond Lies the Wub, which explores what might come of our first interaction with "intelligent life" out there. Or at least, it illustrates how badly we might be misreading other living beings. It's a great story, especially for a first piece. If you don't like sci-fi you can take comfort in its brevity.

Ride report

in: -14'C wind N 10 ks

out: -8'C wind SE 10 ks