Starting in the 1950’s, technology around the world had advanced enough to send satellites and rockets into space. The Soviet Union officially started the Space Age when they launched Sputnik, humanity’s first satellite, out of Earth’s atmosphere and into space. This launch sparked a race between different nations around the world to see who could explore space the most. The space age is when people really started to wonder and become curious about forms of life outside of Earth and the phenomena of Aliens was created.
Many of us are intrigued by the fact that there could potentially be life outside of our solar system. Earth’s tilt, orbit, and proximity to the Sun are all contributing factors as to why life is possible on this planet. Our proximity and tilt towards the sun is what causes seasonal changes and different temperatures. So if any of those factors were to shift or change in the slightest bit, seasonal change would occur around the world and a domino effect would take place after that. Who knows what would happen to Earth’s life cycle if our fragile planet’s natural motion was altered!
With that being known, scientists have hypothesized that if there was another star (like our Sun) with a planet orbiting it in such a way that Earth does, then that planet’s environment could potentially host forms of life.
For a long time NASA and other scientists debated if there were forms of life on our neighbor planet, Mars. Satellite images and pictures taken from robotic spacecrafts have shown that there may be life there. The pictures contain figures and images of water and foot prints on the ground. But these images are often blurry and could be explained by many different things. In addition to inefficient photo evidence, the conditions on Mars are not life friendly. Mars’ average temperature is a chilling -81 degrees Fahrenheit. This is because distance from the sun directly correlates with temperature, so the farther away a planet is from the sun, the lower the temperature is. Despite the numerous facts against life being possible on mars, some people still argue that no human has ever landed on Mars, so how could we know for sure?
Do you believe there could be life on Mars? Or in a distant galaxy?
Resources
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-solar-system/life-on-mars.html