It's Alive!

The Search for Life in the Universe

Citizen Scientist

On the eve of the twenty-first century, while working for an Internet startup in NYC, I came upon SETI@home. It was the first time I had heard of SETI—Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. This is the organization that listens to the sky for ET's to phone Earth. SETI@home was a way to contribute.

I downloaded the software and turned it on. It uses idle CPU cycles on computers to slog through the mountainous data that SETI's telescopes gathered every night, listening for signals (like the one identified in the book and movie Contact). Idle CPU cycles are what your computer is doing when it's not doing anything. Inside the computer, a clock, like a pendulum, constantly ticks out time. A computer's CPU (Central Processing Unit—remember, Tron?) hangs around like construction workers on a cigarette break, waiting to jump into action when the supervisor walks by.

SETI@home keeps the construction workers busy—no smokes for them. My computer and thousands of other people's computers essentially gave SETI a super computer. It crunched through data, 24/7. It was conceived by a bunch of geniuses at UC Berkeley.

The SETI@home program ended in 2020 with no discoveries of extraterrestrial intelligence in the universe (some might say there is no terrestrial intelligence, either, but I ain't going there). We can be confident, as the previous link from Wired Magazine states, the search continues.

Life All Around Us

Now, I've recently come across two articles about life in our Solar System (I know—I'm making a stretch here from intelligence to life—please just go with me).

First, some scientists have been curious about an unexplainable amount of two gases, phosphine and ammonia, in Venus' atmosphere. On Earth, only live bacteria create phosphine. (Yes, please pause from reading this to giggle about what other animals create gases.)

Second, after a review of footage from the Mars Perserverence Rover, microscopic structures were discovered. These rocks "speckled with white spots with black rims" are similar to formations found on Earth that are considered to be the fossilized remains of microbes.

It's not the first time that we found shapes in Mar's soil that hinted at evidence of life.

Going a little further, many suggest that some of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, while extreme and have vastly different atmospheres than Earth, could host extraterrestrial life.

Life Finds A Way

We have a saying here on Earth—Life finds a way. That means that in order for life to have formed on the third rock from the Sun, it had to be tenacious about its survival. If a plant can grow in a crack in cement, why can't something like a bacterium grow in an extreme environment, like the clouds of Venus?

In fact, they can. Extremophiles (yep, they have their own word) exist all around us. You've seen pictures of those cuddly water bears, the tardigrade. There is a thought that we might have dropped some on the moon, and the darn thing can probably survive.

Doh!

So, I guess in an act of self-fulfilling prophecy, there is extraterrestrial life, and it is us. Or at least our fault. And we don't really know how intelligent it is. Perhaps after being stuck up there for generations, it's pissed and might want to pay us a visit. Wouldn't that be a hoot—a little too much like the plot from Star Trek: The Motion Picture where one of the NASA Voyager probes heads home to cause trouble?

Imagine a swarm of giant tardigrades attacking us. Or, maybe, when we finally colonize the Moon, we can raise them on a lunar ranch like space cattle.

Happy reading and happy writing.