Green men, viewed from a basic science perspective, seem to be a growing trend.
As a rule, reflections on the topic of extraterrestrial life by everyone, more or less critical, are perceived with a certain degree of skepticism. It is difficult to argue for or refute a phenomenon that remains a mystery. Moreover, most of the widespread ideas about extraterrestrial life are based on the plots of science fiction books and movies. However, a group of serious American scientists led by a quantum physicist decided to shed scientific light on the secrets of aliens.
The result of this venture was the book Aliens: The World's Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestial Life, presented to the public by physicist Jim Al-Khalili last week. To work on it, he attracted scientists from various fields of science: neurobiologists, neurophysiologists, astrobiologists, cosmologists, etc. Jim Al-Khalili asked each specialist to explain what hypothetically the first contact of a person with aliens would be, from the point of view of science.
The need for such work is not so far-fetched, the authors of the book note. "Since NASA launched the Keller mission in 2009, researchers have discovered nearly 1,000 new planets, influencing the concept of inhabited worlds," said astrobiologist and co-author Natalie Cabrol. A significant part of the research collection is devoted to various aspects of the potential encounter between humans and space aliens. Namely: debunking popular myths that aliens will look like humans, try to eat us or seize the resources of our planet. A more likely scenario is when we will not even meet with an alternative organic life form, according to American scientists.
At the same time, scientists agree in their reflections on the reasons for the "invasion" of aliens on Earth - most likely, they will be led by banal curiosity. “If ever representatives of a space civilization arrive on Earth, they will be researchers interested in learning about our sociobiological laws,” writes astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell.
Expert opinion
Anton Ivanovich Pervushin, member of the Union of Scientists of St. Petersburg and the Russian Federation of Cosmonautics:
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“I can only welcome such works. Various approaches to explaining the existence of possible inhabited worlds have been developed since the 15th century. Now this topic is really very relevant, especially in light of the discovery of exoplanets, the number of which is growing exponentially. In addition, research methods are being improved. For example, now scientists have access to not only the determination of the mass of the planet, but also its spectrum, which, in turn, will make it possible to find out its biosingularity. And this is a completely different soil for building hypotheses about extraterrestrial life forms. Indeed, before striving to meet with the inhabitants of other worlds, we must understand well what and where to look for, what aspects to pay attention to.
At the same time, it is worth avoiding the errors of interpretation, which have already been made by the scientific community, too carried away with solving the mysteries of the Universe. In particular, this was the case with the famous "Martian channels", which in the end turned out to be only an optical illusion."
