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“On any planet in the Universe the laws of physics and chemistry will still be the same as here,” says Prof Peter Ward, a palaeontologist at the University of Washington, Seattle.
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Though, with myriad of discoveries since, we also now have new insights that paint an even wilder picture. Many scientists think the unlikely-sounding creatures dreamed up for these shows two decades ago are still as good a guess as we have for what alien life will look and behave like. These shows parted with the common fictional view of sentient green aliens, and they applied rigorous thinking by evolutionary biologists, biomechanics experts and astrobiologists to design plausible living worlds within the restrictions of alien geology and planetary science. Indeed, some scientists are now trying to lay down the science of not only how life-as-we-now-it would be different in space, but also of what exotic life that was made of other chemicals might be like. The two films inspired many people to think about how other life may be similar and different on other planets. Some of science’s brightest minds have already brainstormed what we might expect to find, and their conclusions formed the basis of two cult documentaries, Natural History Of An Alien and Alien Planet, which first aired in 19 respectively.
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“We know virtually nothing about the actual conditions on those planets,” says Charbonneau. The TESS mission started collecting data this year, and the James Webb Space Telescope is expected to launch in 2021. In the meantime, two NASA missions are set to shine light on the atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars (exoplanets), pinpointing those that could harbour life. The first tests of early designs took place this May. If it works, this would cut the travel time to the closest star system, Alpha Centauri, from 100,000 to just 20 years. Yuri Milner, a Russian tech entrepreneur, came up with the Breakthrough Starshot project, which proposes that tiny chips could be attached to craft propelled through space by an intense Earth-based laser.
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Some scientists and entrepreneurs are already thinking about how to get to distant stars quickly. “The best way to find out is to go look.” That means we might expect to find more than just single-celled microbes out there. “If the origin of life is widespread, then complex life will be widespread,” says McKay. Second, we know that life was present on Earth very early in its history – soon after the planet was formed – which suggests that once the conditions are right, life springs up easily and quickly.