Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or on Mars) for the duration of your life, you’ll know that the human race is kind of obsessed with aliens. Thanks to pop culture and movies such as E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial and Alien, we’ve all grown to believe that aliens are these little green monsters with big eyes and webbed hands that want to eat our brains and experiment on us. Yeah, it’s kinda weird. However, as more people start to contemplate whether aliens are real or not, pop culture seems to add even more weird and wonderful images into our lives – so how do we know what’s real and what’s not? Do aliens really exist?
Waiting for 2040
Because we’re in 2018, it’s difficult to think of what life will be like in 2040. After all, it’s a whopping 22 years away! There’s a high chance our lives will be completely different, and we’ll be looking back on this year and wondering what the heck happened. Yes, in 2014 Prince George will be 27 years old, and Japan will ditch their nuclear power. However, science has also come to the conclusion that 2014 will also be the year of another intriguing year. This is the year that we will finally find alien life. At least, that’s what they say…
In need of solid proof
So, why the heck would we believe a silly scientific hypothesis? Although people around the world have wondered about alien life for centuries, many people have struggled to put any truth to the matter because there is no proof that alien life exists. Until they see a little green man standing in front of them, they will continue to ignore the calls from people around the world that there are other species/people/beings up there. Yet, there is one man who has spent his whole life working on projects surrounding aliens and has absolutely no doubt in his mind that aliens exist. That man is Frank Drake, a famous astrophysicist and the chairman of SETI, California’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute.
The Drake Equation
Amazingly, Frank Drake is so famous he has his own equation! The Drake Equation was created in 1961 when he was working in an observatory, and many believe his science is the solid proof we need to discover alien life once and for all – even if we have yet to see any for our very eyes. This Drake Equation uses science and images of space to determine how many civilizations there could be in the Milky Way across one whole year. It is universally accepted that there are around 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and Drake estimated that around 20-50% of these stars could have their own planetary systems – an idea that telescopes have since been able to prove in some cases. While it’s unlikely that these planets would be identical to Earth, they could still be capable of growing and maintaining life.
Making ourselves known
This means that there could be aliens out there, wondering themselves whether there is anything outside of their planet. However, the only way to make ourselves known to these planets is to make ourselves heard. We would need to use radio waves and electromagnetic signaling to do this, and the planet would need to have the abilities to decipher this signal – and Drake once again estimated that around 10-20% of the planets out there could do that. Using all of this information, Drake was able to come to the conclusion that we would be able to send and receive this information by 2040.
So, what do you think? Do you think that aliens could really exist? Can you wait until 2040 to find out for sure?
