NASA’s Kepler Telescope discovers possible extraterrestrial life

Graphics: Michelle Marchante

Michelle Marchante/Assistant Opinion Director

When it comes to extraterrestrial life, many would argue it means leaving the factual realm of science and entering the world of sci-fi, but according to NASA’s chief scientist, Ellen Stofan, aliens may soon become our reality.

“I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years,” Stofan said during a live webcast panel discussion in April 2015.

This statement may stem from the fact that NASA has found more concrete evidence of life, like the finding of water on Mars or the discovery of Kepler-452b, the first almost Earth-sized planet. NASA may be preparing us so that when they do officially state that they’ve found life, we won’t panic.

Though, their search for life may have ended sooner than planned with the latest discovery of KIC 8462852, a distant star that was discovered by astronomer Tabetha Boyajian through Planet Hunters, a citizen science program at Yale University.

Using NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, scientists have been tracking the emitting light of about 150,000 newly discovered stars for slight periodic dips in order to find distant planets but what made this star unusual is that its brightness dips are extensive and completely random.

“Straight away, we know we’re not dealing with a planet here. Even a Jupiter-sized planet only blocks roughly one percent of this kind of star’s light, and that’s about as big as a planet gets,” Phil Plait, an astronomer at Slate, told the Atlantic.

“It can’t be due to a star, either; we’d see it if it were…whatever is blocking the star is big, though, up to half the width of the star itself,” Plait said.

No system glitch was found and Boyajian already debunked the idea that light from other neighboring stars was intercepting it as the distance is too far.

The only other explanation scientists have is that the star has extra dust clouds, which causes more infrared light, but are skeptical to believe it since that’s a young star characteristic and the KIC 8462852 is considered mature.

With no other natural explanation, scientists have turned to the possibility that they’ve discovered an alien megastructure, something that was built so that an alien population could harness solar energy.

“Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build,” Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, told The Atlantic.

While they’re still trying to figure out what this megastructure really is, if we do discover aliens, how will it affect our life in terms of religion, government and our safety?

The existence of extraterrestrial life will jeopardize the fundamental belief of any religion. It will bring into question everything we know such as Jesus ascension into heaven in body and spirit as proclaimed in the New Testament, the prophet Muhammad’s spirit visiting heaven like the Quran states and the origin of the giant Goliath that is found in the Old Testament.

It also brings into question how the government will react, but most importantly, what will happen to our safety?

“If aliens visit us, the outcome could be much like when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking said during an interview with Spain’s El Pais and he’s right.

History has shown time and time again that the more technologically advanced civilization always defeats and conquers.

Through the years, NASA has sent things like The Golden Record, which has music, photos and other documents that explain our humanity into space in hopes that extraterrestrial life will find it but have they thought of the repercussions?

We’re assuming that the aliens will be friendly but they probably won’t be. We’ll end up in an intergalactic war where humanity will either end up dead or enslaved.  

While it’s egotistical to think that we’re the only planet that could possibly have life, if this alien megastructure truly turns out to be what we think it is, perhaps its best we stay hidden in the shadows and try to avoid ever crossing paths with them. Our safety may rely on it.

The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of FIU Student Media Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.

Image from pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sky-earth-galaxy-universe-2422/