If extraterrestrial life exists in the solar system, then, most likely, in the oceans of the moons of its planets.
If you have ever thought about the appearance of aliens, then your brain, most likely, painted the image of big-eyed, greenish, lanky creatures from comics or M. Night Shyamalan's films. And this may indeed be true for intelligent life outside the solar system (not that we can verify this for sure). But if such a life exists inside her (besides us), then most likely it resembles octopuses. At least that's what Japanese physicist and space expert Michio Kaku thinks.
According to the Cheatsheet report, Dr. Kaku recently published a book, The Future of Humanity, which focuses on various topics related to space and the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the solar system. As for the alien life itself - its intelligent version - within our system, the scientist has a rather unusual hypothesis on this score.
Where else in the solar system is life
In addition to the native Earth, according to scientists, there are two options for where life can still exist in our system. One of them is Mars. If there is anything living there, it is probably primitive single-celled organisms like fungi and bacteria. Another option is the oceans that exist on many moons of the planets revolving with us around a common star. Among them are Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus. Their oceans are covered with ice, but scientists believe that life may be hidden under it - even quite intelligent. According to Dr. Kaku, this means that any extraterrestrial life in our system is likely to resemble Earth's aquatic life.
We are used to imagining aliens as Mr. Gray.
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And that is not all
As we know, the Earth's oceans are home to countless living things - from primitive single-celled organisms to mammals, whose intelligence can compete with representatives of Homo sapiens. However, Kaku believes that an alien civilization would require some traits that, collectively, are available to only a few species of marine life. In his opinion, any intelligent alien civilization, be it on Enceladus or Europa, should have opposing fingers to grab things, good eyesight and the ability to communicate.
So, only octopuses remain - however, they have not yet developed communication skills here on Earth. But in space, anything is possible. What's more, a close relative of the octopus, the squid, has the potential to develop something like communication, so in theory this is possible for cephalopods.
Good eyesight, communication skills and tentacles for grabbing things - here are the essential trappings for an intelligent underwater alien race.
“It is quite possible to imagine how, on a distant planet, under the influence of various conditions, an octopus-like creature developed a language from chirping and whistling. One can even imagine how one day in the distant future, evolutionary pressure on Earth would cause an octopus to develop intelligence. The possibility of the existence of an intelligent race of octopods is quite acceptable.
Of course, we will not know for sure about this until research expeditions are sent to such extraterrestrial oceans. Or maybe (even if this thought sounds intimidating), an octopus-like alien race has learned to live out of water and is now heading towards us for first contact.
Vladimir Mirny