Image: NASA Hubble Space Telescope
There’s plenty of people that would say those holding positions of power already know an awful lot more about extra terrestrials than they’re letting on; and some have some rather convincing evidence. But what do you think the Astronomer Royal, Lord Rees, would make of the subject? Well he’s certainly not very shy about his opinions in his latest interview.
“Within ten or 20 years we will be able to image other planets like the earth, orbiting other stars.” He told The Sun newspaper. “That will be a really exciting subject to see if there is evidence for life or not.”
He goes a little deeper, though, into some more thought-provoking ideas and stressing how he believes that “origin of life, the place where it exists, and whether aliens exist” is a crucial thing for humans to work out over the next 40 years. Although he says we may just not have evolved to a stage where our brains can understand these things, and that a post-human era or alien intervention may be necessary before we ever can.
“It could be some of the challenges may not be fully solved, we may have to wait for the post-human era. That is evolution beyond humans – and we are not the culmination of evolution on the earth.”
Personally, I feel his openness on the matter at least points towards the gradual acceptance that we may not be the only beings around. From a mainstream standpoint, the idea is fast becoming that alien lifeforms are probable, not just possible — an idea that would have been ridiculed not so many years ago.
I feel he has a good point when mentioning that perhaps we just can’t understand some complex or spiritual things, such as the the place where life exists. How many years have human-beings been on this planet, wondering what the meaning of life is? In all that time, nobody seems to have really grasped it in a way that can be universally accepted. Perhaps we really aren’t ready for it yet?
What do you think?
