Life in the Universe
The announcement that NASA made about the discovery of a stellar (not solar) system named TRAPPIST-1 System has raised once again the question about the existence of life elsewhere out of the solar system…
I just raise few remarks to contribute to the discussion on this matter… Let begin by what is central to the solar system where life is as we know it… Many focus on weather (temperature) and water to define the famous “habitable zone” that can guide any research on the existence of life elsewhere in the Universe…
The “habitable zone” is the consequence of many interactions… It is not the first cause of life… I think the first factor that defines these interactions is the nature of what is central to the system, in this case the Sun… Everything in our system is first shaped by the Sun… If we are looking for a “twin system” to our solar system, the first focus should be to know if there is a twin of the Sun elsewhere in the Universe…
This image from NASA show the difference in size between our Sun, which would be the equivalent of a basketball, compared to the star of the TRAPPIST-1 system that would be the equivalent of a golf ball… This is an indication that the two stars are different maybe even more than in size and may involve very different chemistry and physics within their respective systems although some resemblances… Not every star with exoplanets is the Sun…
There exists many stars in the Universe… Are there twin stars that would be identical suns with the same evolution that would lead to the same results among which life? I am very skeptical about such assumption…
Now let talk about the rocky planets… The NASA discovery is very interesting because it shows the evidence that the Universe is full of rocky planets, some within stars’ systems, others alone without any gravitation within such systems…
The question now: among many unknown rocky planets in the Universe, would there be a twin of the Earth? In our own solar system, not every rocky planet is the Earth; each rocky planet is very singular… Once again, even if we discover many rocky exoplanets within stellar systems, the probability that they are twins of our Earth is maybe zero because it would be difficult to get twins suns…
Now let talk about the famous “habitable zone”… Is the existence of water, which is the combination of hydrogen and oxygen, possible elsewhere in the Universe? Of course yes! Within our own solar system, there is water in different states (liquide on Earth and glace or gaze on other places). Water is not enough to allow the development of life as we know it…
The other element of “habitable zone” is the weather that define the temperature… Is it possible to get temperature variations that are very semblable to those ones on Earth? Surely yes if NASA have factual evidence about such temperature variations on some of exoplanets discovered in the TRAPPIST-1 system… Can such temperature variations be the result of a weather that is identical to our own weather on Earth? Probably not, because that system is not the twin of the solar system with a twin of the planet Earth to produce the same kind of weather…
So having the same temperature variations doesn’t mean you have the same weather system that can be favorable to the development of life as we know it…
These few elements show that maybe the assumptions that frame the research of life in the Universe are very weak… Instead of focussing on astrophysical conditions, geological conditions and other ones that define current assumptions of such research; I would propose to change the paradigm of the research…
Current hypotheses of research on life in the Universe suppose that life is the outcome of external conditions that define our Earth environment… What if such assumptions are wrong? If they are wrong, it means that life is possible in different conditions compared to what we know on our planet Earth…
If we assume that life is possible in different conditions, it means that there may be other categories or nature of life that are totally different of what we know in our solar system… In other words, instead of focusing on the conditions that are identical to our solar system to know if there is life elsewhere we should shift our paradigm that guides our research…
The new paradigm would not be based on what we think to be the conditions of life, for which we cannot yet define and understand the genesis and the development in our own system… The new paradigm would be to know if there is any form of intelligence elsewhere in the Universe?
The answer is of course a BIG YES! Because life as we know it is the outcome of the Universe Intelligence… The Sun system by itself is another manifestation of the Universe Intelligence: there are laws that rule life; there are laws that rule the solar system… There are laws that rule each single system within the Universe… All of those laws are the outcome of the Universe Intelligence whose life on Earth is just one of many aspects of its manifestations…
For sure, there are other complexe manifestations of the Universe Intelligence far somewhere from us, maybe very near from us that we don’t want to see or understand before looking elsewhere… 😊😊😊
Remember, we are talking here about the known Universe, which is only 4% of what our own intelligence can apprehend… What about the 96%?
