Tuesday 8 August 2023

Life on other planets - why Goldilocks holds the key.

UFOs, UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), ET and the question of life on other planets has been in the news quite a bit recently, including well-respected David Grusch at US Congress. Christianity Magazine this month features an article "Is the Truth out there?". What are we to make of such stories? Goldilocks may hold the key. In the fairytale the porridge of the 3 bears she tastes is first too hot, then too cold, then "Just Right". Hence what cosmologists and astro-physicists call the Goldilocks Enigma. Earth is mysteriously positioned just right to sustain life. Any slightest change of the slightest degree would mean the planet is either too hot or too cold. Earth sits just right and nobody really knows why. The famous physicist Paul Davies says the chances of this "cosmic jackpot" are 119 powers of 10 or about the same as flipping a coin and getting heads 400 times in a row. Impossible. If the chances of a planet called earth in our solar system being bio-friendly are that remote, what are the chances of those odds being repeated elsewhere in the universe (or indeed the multiverse)...? If we add the Goldilocks Enigma to the fact that no evidence of life on other plants, or alien visitation has been produced (even with Hubble and other super power telescopes) the chances remain impossibly remote. Life on other planets? Let's enjoy and look after this one.

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