Galactic generation

This loneliness is so difficult to fathom, yet easy to share. We humans number more than six billion but we just cannot stifle a yearning to...

This loneliness is so difficult to fathom, yet easy to share. We humans number more than six billion but we just cannot stifle a yearning to make contact with galactic cousins. Science fiction has for long fed popular curiosity about life on other planets, spinning man meets extraterrestrial narratives while neatly glossing over tricky details like logistics and biochemistry. Now scientists have stepped in to present circumstantial evidence that life could in fact exist elsewhere. A month ago, American space agency NASA announced that its Mars Odyssey spacecraft had provided proof that water-ice was present on the Red Planet. And this week, a group of astronomers manning a telescope in Australia have sighted the first solar system similar to ours 8212; with a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a sun-like star.

It is too early to start scheduling galactic get-togethers, but these two discoveries have generated tremendous excitement. Over a hundred planets circling stars have been located in the last decade, but none so far has nurtured hope of life. Most of their orbits are too elliptical and run too close to stars to be habitable or to co-exist with smaller earth-like planets. The new solar system opens up rare possibilities. It may be 90 light years away, but in terms of galactic travel, that could be an express ride! Of course, till a technological revolution in spacecraft takes place, there is always Mars. All along the assumption has been that water is a pre-requisite for the existence of life. A century ago an American astronomer drove himself to lunacy mapping what he thought, erroneously, were water canals on Mars. NASA now believes huge reservoirs of water may lie underground and is hoping to reverse a string of disastrous forays to the Red Planet by planning a manned mission 20 years from now.

It8217;s not just ET enthusiasts and tourists itching to leave the earth8217;s atmosphere who have cause to cheer. There is a burgeoning school of thought 8212; including bestselling writers like Graham Hancock and eminent physicists like Paul Davies 8212; who believe that all of us on earth evolved from a lifeform imported from Mars. The possibility of life on Mars will surely be cited as vindication. In that case, can we say we are all ETs?