LIFE BEYOND: Visions of Alien Life. Full Documentary Remastered (4K)

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Supported By Supported By Protocol Labs Supported By Protocol Labs Follow your curiosity. Supported By Protocol Labs Follow your curiosity. Lead humanity forward.
Two possibilities exist: Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe,
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. Arthur C. Clarke In all of time,
on all the planets of all the galaxies in space,
what civilizations have risen, looked into the night,
seen what we see,
asked the questions that we ask? Are we alone?
Is Earth the only chapter in the story of life?
The answers lie somewhere in distant space and time.
For the first time, For the first time, the truth is finally within our reach.
The search will reveal who we are and who we might become.
LIFE LIFE BEYOND
CHAPTER I CHAPTER I The Dawn
In the search for life out there, we must first look inward.
Life seems to have conquered every corner of the Earth.
How did all this complexity emerged? What does it take to create life?
What does it take to create life? Living organisms are created by chemistry. Living organisms are created by chemistry. We are huge packages of chemicals.
And what are the ideal conditions for chemistry? Well, first, you need energy. I Well, first, you need energy. I E Well, first, you need energy. I EN Well, first, you need energy. I ENE Well, first, you need energy. I ENER Well, first, you need energy. I ENERG Well, first, you need energy. I ENERGY Well, first, you need energy.
I ENERGY e.g Well, first, you need energy. I ENERGY e.g Sunlight, Well, first, you need energy. I ENERGY e.g Sunlight, I ENERGY e.g Sunlight, Geothermal Heat I ENERG e.g Sunlight, Geothermal Heat I ENER e.g Sunlight, Geothermal Heat I ENE e.g Sunlight, Geothermal Heat I EN e.g Sunlight, I E e.g I E I
But not too much. What you want is just the right amount and planets it turns out are just right,
because they are close to stars, but not too close.
You also need a great diversity II You also need a great diversity II HE You also need a great diversity II HEA You also need a great diversity II HEAV You also need a great diversity II HEAVY You also need a great diversity II HEAVY E You also need a great diversity II HEAVY EL You also need a great diversity II HEAVY ELE You also need a great diversity II HEAVY ELEM You also need a great diversity II HEAVY ELEME You also need a great diversity II HEAVY ELEMEN You also need a great diversity II HEAVY ELEMENT You also need a great diversity II HEAVY ELEMENTS You also need a great diversity II HEAVY ELEMENTS e.g of chemical elements. II HEAVY ELEMENTS e.g Oxygen, of chemical elements. II HEAVY ELEMENTS e.g Oxygen, Carbon, of chemical elements. II HEAVY ELEMENTS e.g Oxygen, Carbon, Sulfur of chemical elements. II HEAVY ELEMENTS e.g Oxygen, Carbon, Sulfur
II HEAVY ELEMENT e.g Oxygen, Carbon, Sulfur II HEAVY ELEMEN e.g Oxygen, Carbon, Sulfur II HEAVY ELEME e.g Oxygen, Carbon, II HEAVY ELEM e.g Oxygen, Carbon, II HEAVY ELE e.g Oxygen, Carbon, II HEAVY EL e.g Oxygen, II HEAVY E e.g II HEAVY II HEAV II HEA II HE II H II I And you need liquid, such as water. III such as water. III L such as water. III LI such as water. III LIQ such as water. III LIQU such as water. III LIQUI such as water. III LIQUID such as water. III LIQUID such as water. III LIQUID e.g such as water. III LIQUID e.g Water such as water. III LIQUID e.g. water
Why? Well, in gases, atoms move past each other so fast
that they can't hitch up. In solids, atoms are stuck together.
They can't move. In liquids, they can cruise and cuddle
and link up to form molecules.
Liquid water is just so good for getting evolution going. Molecules can dissolve in the water to form more complex chains.
Now, where do you find such goldilocks conditions? Well, planets are great.
And our early Earth was almost perfect.
Earth Earth: 4 Billion Years Ago
It was just the right distance from its star to contain huge oceans of liquid water.
And deep beneath those oceans, at cracks in the Earth's crust, fantastic chemistry began to happen
and atoms combined in all sorts of exotic combinations.
The exact recipe is still a mystery, but the ingredients for life are simple: The exact recipe is still a mystery, but the ingredients for life are simple: energy, organic molecules, and liquid water.
Somewhere in the seas of early Earth, basic chemistry became biology — possibly even more than once.
The first cells were likely born in hot volcanic waters, in conditions once thought impossible for biology.
The closer we study life, the more extreme places we find it thriving.
Here on our planet, microbes have adapted to survive the most hostile conditions.
Arid deserts, the frozen Himalayas, in trenches under thousands of tons of pressure
in the ocean deeps. New research suggests that life emerged over 4 billion years ago,
when Earth was an alien and deadly planet.
At the time, Earth was ravaged by intense volcanism and an asteroid storm that lasted 100 million years.
But even in these extreme conditions, life quickly found a foothold.
As soon as the Earth cooled off after its formation, we know that life began here.
Because it happened quickly here on Earth, we think it is going to happen quickly on other planets as well.
The story of Earth gives us hope that life could be universally common.
It teaches us that life is fast acting, tenacious, and made of basic, common ingredients.
After 4 billion years of isolation, the search for our cosmic kin has finally begun.
Our best bet will be to look for ocean worlds like Earth.
Already, the finding are tantalizing.
KEPLER-62F KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. Size: 1.4x Earth. KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. Size: 1.4x Earth. Temperature: ≥ -85ºF. KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. Size: 1.4x Earth. Temperature: ≥ -85ºF. Age: ~7 billion years. KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. Size: 1.4x Earth. Temperature: ≥ -85ºF. Age: ~7 billion years. Possible Water World
KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. Size: 1.4x Earth. Temperature: ≥ -85ºF. Age: ~7 billion years. KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. Size: 1.4x Earth. Temperature: ≥ -85ºF. KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. Size: 1.4x Earth. KEPLER-62F Distance: 1200 Light Years. KEPLER-62F TRAPPIST-1D TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. Size: 0.77x Earth. TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. Size: 0.77x Earth. Age: ~7.5 billion years. TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. Size: 0.77x Earth. Age: ~7.5 billion years. Temperature: ≥ 20ºF. TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. Size: 0.77x Earth. Age: ~7.5 billion years. Temperature: ≥ 20ºF. Possible Water World
TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. Size: 0.77x Earth. Age: ~7.5 billion years. Temperature: ≥ 20ºF. TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. Size: 0.77x Earth. Age: ~7.5 billion years. TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. Size: 0.77x Earth. TRAPPIST-1D Distance: 41 Light Years. TRAPPIST-1D TEEGARDEN-B TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. Size: 1.07x Earth. TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. Size: 1.07x Earth. Age: 8 billion years. TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. Size: 1.07x Earth. Age: 8 billion years. Minimum temperature: ≥ 20ºF. TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. Size: 1.07x Earth. Age: 8 billion years. Minimum temperature: ≥ 20ºF. Possible Water World
TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. Size: 1.07x Earth. Age: 8 billion years. Minimum temperature: ≥ 20ºF. TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. Size: 1.07x Earth. Age: 8 billion years. TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. Size: 1.07x Earth. TEEGARDEN-B Distance: 12 Light Years. TEEGARDEN-B K2-18B K2-18B Distance: 111 Light Years. K2-18B Distance: 111 Light Years. Size: 2.7x Earth. K2-18B Distance: 111 Light Years. Size: 2.7x Earth. Temperature: -100 -116ºF. K2-18B Distance: 111 Light Years. Size: 2.7x Earth. Temperature: -100 -116ºF. Confirmed atmospheric water vapor
K2-18B Distance: 111 Light Years. Size: 2.7x Earth. Temperature: -100 -116ºF. K2-18B Distance: 111 Light Years. Size: 2.7x Earth. K2-18B Distance: 111 Light Years. K2-18B And we have still barely scratched the surface.
And we have still barely scratched the surface. Nature's trove of secrets is bottomless. And we have still barely scratched the surface. Nature's trove of secrets is bottomless. We know that the galaxy is awash in water.
We know that the galaxy is awash in water.
It’s awash in organic molecules and complex chemistry.
All of the things that we know were necessary for life to begin on this planet, exist in abundance throughout the galaxy.
Did something similar to what happened on our own planet happen on those other planets?
Looking at the raw numbers, the existence of alien life seems almost inevitable.
About 25% of stars have rocky planets in their habitable zone, About 25% of stars have rocky planets in their habitable zone, the right orbital distance for liquid water.
In our Milk Way galaxy alone, that's ~50 billion worlds like Earth.
In the entire universe, the possible number of habitable planets is staggering:
In the entire universe, the possible number of habitable planets is staggering: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Imagine each flash of light represents an Earth-like planet.
You would have to watch this animation for over a billion years to view them all.
Each one with a history as rich and unique as Earth.
Trillions and trillions of chemical soups, stewing for eons.
There are more habitable Earth-mass planets in the observable volume of the universe
than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth.
Among this abundance of worlds, many will be deadly to life as we know it.
There will be planets in the habitable zone that are scorched, frozen, and suffocated by poison gases.
Many will lack an atmosphere critical for temperature regulation, or have one that is deadly.
Venus, once thought to potentially support life, is now sterilized by a crushing, toxic atmosphere.
But life may not be confined to the habitable zone.
Far from the warmth of their star, the moons of giant gas planets may be hidden oases for life.
Their energy comes not from starlight, but from gravity.
The lurching push and pull of the host planet.
Icy Enceladus has it all: a huge subsurface ocean with hydrothermal vents spewing the chemistry of life.
Titan is especially alluring. Larger than Mercury and speckled with methane lakes and organic compounds.
In 2026, NASA plans to send a drone to Titan, seeking out signs of life in its valleys and craters.
There may be 100 trillion exomoons in our galaxy alone, 100 times the number of planets.
With so many places to find life, With so many places to find life, it seems only a matter of time before we make a discovery.
And we may not have to look far.
For years, we have looked to Mars as our best bet for finding life in the solar system.
The idea that Venus could have been habitable in the past is also quite plausible.
Venus could have maintained liquid water for around 3 billion years, only becoming uninhabitable just 750 million years ago.
Life could have been present on the surface and evolved the ability to float up into the clouds.
Up here, the pressures drop and the temperatures become balmy. Comparable to none of the Earth.
The idea of life on Venus isn't that crazy.
Recently, signs of phosphine gas have been spotted in the Venutian atmosphere.
Phosphine is produced by microbes on Earth; Phosphine is produced by microbes on Earth; no know physical processes on Venus produce it.
Is this a sign of life right next door to Earth?
In 2029, NASA's DAVINCI probe will dive into Venus' clouds to see for itself.
A similar mystery is unfolding on Mars.
Traces of methane in the air remain unexplained and could be biological in origin.
A discovery on either planet would have profound implications.
A discovery on either planet would have profound implications. The discovery of just one bacteria on Mars, The discovery of just one bacteria on Mars, or any other body of the solar system
would indicate that the whole chain of evolutions, cosmic, chemical and biological
is at work everywhere. In that case, the creation of life anywhere in the universe
would be more the rule than the exception.
And we might not have to wait long to find answers.
NASA scientists new think we are on the verge of discovery. NASA scientists new think we are on the verge of discovery. Within all of our lifetime, we're gonna understand that there is life on other bodies in the solar system.
We're gonna understand the implications of that for evolution of life here on Earth.
We're gonna find planets around other stars that we can say we see potential signs of habitability in their atmospheres.
That's all gonna happens in the next 10 to 20 years. How exciting is that?
We're on the verge of things that people have wondered about for Milennia: "Are we alone?"
And here we are, on the verge of finding that out.
If we do find life out there, what will we discover about ourselves?
What chapter is Earth in the story of life?
Our universe is close to 14 billion years old, and there is planets out there that are three times as old as Earth.
With all that time to develop, there could be life out there far more advanced than us.
Is Earth life a latecomer on the cosmic stage?
Just how ancient could life be? 100 Thousand Years Ago 1 Million Years Ago
5 Million Years Ago 10 Million Years Ago 50 Million Years Ago 100 Million Years Ago 200 Million Years Ago 300 Million Years Ago 400 Million Years Ago 500 Million Years Ago 1 Billion Years Ago
2 Billion Years Ago 3 Billion Years Ago 4 Billion Years Ago 5 Billion Years Ago 10 Billion Years Ago 13.8 Billion Years Ago Event: The Big Bang
For its first few million years, the cosmos was too hot for life as we know it.
The ambient temperature would have boiled you alive.
Event: First generations of Stars borned
When it was finally cool enough for life, there were no stars and planets. Only huge lumbering clouds of hydrogen.
After 70 million years, gravity took hold of these clouds and spun them into the first generation of stars.
The first stars were massive and bright, The first stars were massive and bright, but there was no life to watch them rise.
Vital heavy elements were still being forged in their cores. Vital heavy elements were still being forged in their cores. Not even the Big Bang was hot enough to create them.
Vital heavy elements were still being forged in their cores. Not even the Big Bang was hot enough to create them. The Big Bang created only the three lightest elements: The Big Bang created only the three lightest elements: hydrogen, helium and lithium.
The heavier elements that make life possible were only created later in the ultra dense cores of stars.
And for those elements to wind up inside your body those stars would have to explode.
Event: Death of a Star
The explosive death of the first mid-sized stars seeded the cosmos with the ingredients for life.
From their ashes rose a second generation of suns, this time with rocky planets dancing around them.
This is the moment: the raw ingredients for life together for the first time, ~13.7 billion years ago.
As the heat from the Big Bang faded, As the heat from the Big Bang faded, the universe passed through a "goldilocks" era.
Some 15 million years after time began, Some 15 million years after time began, the ambient temperature reached a balmy 75º F (24º C).
For millions of years, it was warm in all directions, For millions of years, it was warm in all directions, like an endless summer day on Earth.
Stars and planets could have formed this early on, Stars and planets could have formed this early on, in theoretical ultra-dense regions of space.
If such regions existed, liquid water could have flowed abundantly, If such regions existed, liquid water could have flowed abundantly, even on rogue planets far from any star.
Could this have been dawn of life? Could this have been dawn of life? Alien beings feeding off the heat of the Big Bang?
Despite decades of searching, Despite decades of searching, no sign of alien life has ever been confirmed.
So where is everybody?
Could we really be alone?
Maybe primitive life is common, but intelligence is exceedingly rare.
Maybe space is just too vast for feasible communication.
Or maybe we are the first.
Could we be the opening chapter in a sprawling history of life?
13.8 Billion Years 14 Billion Years 15 Billion Years
16 Billion Years 17 Billion Years 18 Billion Years 19 Billion Years 20 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 21 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 22 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 23 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 24 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 25 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 30 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born.
35 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 40 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 45 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 50 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 55 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 60 Billion Years The universe is young, and the vast majority of planets have yet to be born. 65 Billion Years 70 Billion Years 80 Billion Years 90 Billion Years 100 Billion Years
110 Billion Years 120 Billion Years 130 Billion Years 140 Billion Years 150 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 200 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 250 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 300 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years.
350 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 400 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 450 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 500 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 600 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 700 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 800 Billion Years The ingredients for life will be stewing for another 100,000,000,000,000 years. 900 Billion Years
900 Billion Years From this perspective, we are the dawn: the opening melody in a symphony of life. 1 Trillion Years From this perspective, we are the dawn: the opening melody in a symphony of life. 2 Trillion Years From this perspective, we are the dawn: the opening melody in a symphony of life. 4 Trillion Years From this perspective, we are the dawn: the opening melody in a symphony of life. 8 Trillion Years From this perspective, we are the dawn: the opening melody in a symphony of life. 16 Trillion Years From this perspective, we are the dawn: the opening melody in a symphony of life.
32 Trillion Years From this perspective, we are the dawn: the opening melody in a symphony of life. 32 Trillion Years 64 Trillion Years
70 Trillion Years 80 Trillion Years 90 Trillion Years 95 Trillion Years ~100 Trillion Years Later Event: Last Star Dies ~100 Trillion Years Later
Event: Last Star dies ~100 Trillion Years Later What might come long after us?
Red dwarf stars can live up to 10 trillion years, bathing their planets in starlight for eons.
Life is much more probable on these time scales, where conditions are stable for vast periods of time.
Any beings living close to these stars would have to contend with violent solar flares that continually threaten extinction.
Many of these planets would be tidally locked: one side permanently exposed to the sun,
the other frozen in darkness. But as Earth has taught us,
But as Earth has taught us, life is remarkably adaptable.
What forms might life take when it has trillions of years to evolve?
One day, somehow, the story of life will come to an end.
If we are the first chapter of that story, If we are the first chapter of that story, we have the chance to carry the torch of life far into the future.
And if biology does persist far into the future, And if biology does persist far into the future, then we live in a privileged moment.
In later chapters, the universe will seem far different.
Distant galaxies will fade from view, stars will die off, and the night skies will go dark.
Perhaps life in the far future will wonder: Perhaps life in the far future will wonder: What it was like to live in the universe's brilliant early days?
We are lucky enough to know the answer.
All we have to do is look up.
If there is alien life out there, If there is alien life out there, will we know it when we see it?
What would other trees of life actually look like?
Imagine a museum containing every type of life form in the universe.
What strange things would such a museum hold?
What is possible under the laws of nature?
LIFE LIFE BEYOND
CHAPTER II CHAPTER II The Museum of Alien Life
To have any hope of finding alien life, we have to know what to look for.
But where do we begin? How do we narrow down a seemingly infinite set of possibilities?
There's one thing we know for sure: nature will have to play by her own rules.
No matter how strange alien life might be, it's going to be limited by the same physical and chemical laws that we are.
On top of this, each alien environment will further limit what kinds of lifeforms can evolve there.
Despite these natural boundaries, the possibilities are staggering to imagine.
Trillions of planets, each a unique cauldron of chemicals undergoing their own complex evolution.
To guide our thinking, this museum of alien life will be divided into two exhibits:
Life as we know it, home to beings with biochemistries like ours;
and life as we don't know it, home to beings that challenge our concept of life itself.
Before we venture too far into the unknown, we have to ask ourselves:
What if alien life is more like us than we think?
If there's one feature that unites us with the other specimens in this museum, it's carbon.
Carbon is ubiquitous, it's one of the most common elements in the universe, and it's very good at forming large, stable molecules
Carbon has the rare ability to form four-way bonds with other elements, and to bind to itself in long, stable chains,
enabling the formation of huge complex molecules.
This versatility makes carbon the centerpiece in the molecular machinery of life.
And the same carbon compounds that we use have been found far from Earth,
clinging to meteorites, and floating in far-off clouds of cosmic dust.
The building blocks of life, drifting like snow through the universe.
And if alien life has selected other carbon compounds for their biochemistry,
they will have plenty to choose from.
Scientists recently identified over a million possible alternatives to DNA—
all carbon-based.
If we ever discover other carbon-based lifeforms, we would be fundamentally related.
They would be our cosmic brethren.
But would they look anything like us?
If they hail from Earth-like planets, we could share even more in common than just our biochemistry.
What would life be like on other planets, if it is evolved? Would it be like the world today here on Earth,
or would it be completely different? There are those who argue that, from the argument of convergent evolution,
if conditions on other planets are similar to here, then we would see very similar life forms—
animal- and plant-like organisms that look very familiar.
On Earth, certain features like eyesight, echolocation, and flight have evolved multiple times independently in different species.
This process of convergent evolution could extend to alien planets like Earth,
where creatures face similar environmental pressures.
It's no guarantee, but there could be certain universalities of life.
The greatest hits of evolution on repeat across the universe.
Each feature would be attuned to its local environment. Dimly lit planets would produce huge eyes to suck in extra light,
like nocturnal mammals.
Some people have gone so far as to say that human-type organisms, humanoids,
will occur on other planets.
The existence of other humanlike organisms seems unlikely, given the long, convoluted chain of events that produced us.
But we can't rule it out.
If just one in every hundred trillion Earth-like planets produced a humanlike form,
there could still be thousands of creatures like us out there.
But in reality, we are more likely to find something lower on the food chain.
Convergent evolution is also rampant in plant life, and C₄ photosynthesis has arisen independently over 40 times.
Would alien plants look like ours, or something else entirely?
On Earth, plants appear green because they absorb the other wavelengths in the Sun's light spectrum.
But stars come in many colors,
and alien plants would evolve different pigments to adapt to their sun's unique spectrum.
Plants feeding off hotter stars could appear redder, by absorbing their energy-rich bluer light.
Around dim red dwarf stars, vegetation could appear black,
adapted to absorb all visible wavelengths of light.
Earth itself may have once appeared purple due a pigment called retinal that was an early precursor to chlorophyll.
Some think that retinal's molecular simplicity could make it a more universal pigment.
If so, we may find that purple is life's favorite color.
But the color of alien vegetation is more than just a curiosity—
it's chemical information that can be seen from lightyears away.
Earth plants leave a signature "bump" in the light reflected off our planet.
Finding a similar signal from another world could point the way to alien vegetation.
Perhaps this will be our first glimpse at alien life: a vibrant hue cast by a distant world.
But the biggest influence on life won't be its host star; it will be its home planet.
What happens when you change the day length of a planet? What happens when you change the tilt of a planet? What happens when you change the shape of the orbit?
What happens when you change the gravity of a planet?
Planets with long, elliptical orbits would see drastic seasons.
There could be worlds that appear dead for thousands of years, then suddenly spring to life.
Most of the rocky planets discovered so far have been massive "super-Earths".
How would life evolve on these worlds?
In the seas, gravity may not matter much at all.
A high-gravity planet isn't high-gravity all over. If you're in the sea and that's where all life starts,
there's very nearly no gravity 'cause you're much the same density as the stuff around you.
It's when the animals come out on land, that they feel the gravity.
High g-forces would necessitate large bones and muscle mass in complex life on land.
They would also demand a more robust circulatory system.
And plant life could be stunted by the energy cost of carrying nutrients under stronger gravity.
Low-gravity planets would more easily lose their atmospheres to space, and lack a magnetic field to protect from cosmic rays.
But smaller worlds could be home to secret oases:
huge cave systems that provide hideouts for life.
With steadier temperatures and protection from cosmic rays, With steadier temperatures and protection from cosmic rays, life could thrive underground on planets with deadly surfaces.
The smallest possible habitable planets are estimated at 2.5% Earth's mass.
If surface life does evolve on these worlds, it could be a sight to behold.
Plant life could grow to towering heights, able to carry nutrients higher in lesser gravity.
And without the need for bulky skeletons and muscle mass, animals could have body types that boggle the mind.
Despite our eager imaginations, large complex lifeforms are probably a cosmic rarity.
Here on Earth, it took three billion years for evolution to produce complex plant and animal life.
Simpler organisms are hardier, more adaptable, and more widespread.
The largest collection in the museum of alien life would likely be the "Hall of Microbes".
Yet finding even the tiniest alien microbe would be a profound discovery.
And bite-sized life could leave a big footprint.
Like stromatolites on Earth, layers of microbes could build up into huge rock mounds over time,
leaving behind eerie structures.
And in big enough numbers, some alien bacteria could leave a distinct biosignature
by exhaling gases that wouldn't coexist naturally, like oxygen and methane.
There's ways to make oxygen without life, there's ways to make methane without life, but to have them in the atmosphere together is almost impossible unless you've got biology making those gases at the surface.
And it would have an imprint on the planet's spectrum of colors.
Next-generation space telescopes could find a signal like this, on a world not far from home.
The closest Sun-like star with an Earth-like exoplanet in the habitable zone
is probably only 20 light years away, and can be seen with the naked eye.
But there may be an even easier target to aim for than tiny Earth-like planets.
The brown dwarfs: too small to be stars, too big to be planets.
Most brown dwarfs are too hot to support life as we know it. But some are just cold enough.
All the prime elements for life have been detected inside their atmospheres.
And within these clouds, some layers would provide ideal temperatures and pressures for habitability.
There could be photosynthetic plankton in these skies, kept aloft by churning upwinds.
And with enough force, these upwinds could even support larger, more complex life.
Predators...
There are over 25 billion brown dwarfs in our galaxy alone, There are over 25 billion brown dwarfs in our galaxy alone, and their sizes will make them easier targets for study.
The first specimen we discover from the museum of life may not come from a planet at all.
This raises a crucial question: what if we've been looking in all the wrong places?
What if nature has other ideas?
Most of the universe is too cold or too hot for liquid water and the biochemistry that supports life as we know it.
But in case our biases are misleading, we have to cast a wide net—
to search for life outside the habitable zone, in places that seem wildly hostile to us.
Exotic environments will demand exotic biochemistries, and while no element can match carbon's versatility,
one contender is a frontrunner.
At first glance, silicon seems similar to carbon.
It forms the same four-way bonds and is also abundant in the universe.
But a closer look reveals that these two elements are false twins.
Silicon bonds are weaker, and less prone to forming large, complex molecules.
Despite this, they can withstand a wider range of temperatures, opening up intriguing possibilities.
Life based on the silicon atom, instead of carbon, would be more resistant to the extreme cold,
providing a whole new range of weird forms.
But silicon has a problem: in the presence of oxygen, it binds into solid rock.
To avoid turning to stone, silicon beings might be confined to oxygen-free environments,
like Saturn's frigid moon, Titan.
Its vast lakes of liquid methane and ethane could be an ideal medium for silicon-based life, or other radical biochemistries.
Without ample sunlight, beings on worlds like Titan would likely be chemosynthetic,
deriving their energy by breaking down rocks.
Such life forms could have ultra slow metabolisms, and life cycles measured in millions of years.
And frozen worlds aren't the only possible harbor for exotic life.
In high temperatures, typically rigid silicon-oxygen bonds become more flexible and reactive,
triggering more dynamic chemistry.
This has led to a truly bizarre proposal: silicon-based lifeforms that live inside molten silicate rock.
In theory, these forms could even exist deep beneath the Earth inside magma chambers as part of a shadow biosphere.
If so, then the aliens are right under our noses.
Other shadow biospheres have been proposed— forms of life living alongside us that we don't even know are here—
including tiny RNA-based life small enough to go undetected by existing instruments.
Clouds of dust and empty space might seem like the last place you'd expect to find anything living.
But when cosmic dust makes contact with plasma, a type of ionized gas,
something strange happens.
In simulated conditions, dust particles have been seen spontaneously self-organizing into helical structures that resemble DNA.
These plasma crystals even begin to exhibit lifelike behavior; replicating, evolving into more stable forms, and passing on information.
Could these crystals be considered alive?
To some researchers, they meet all the criteria to qualify as inorganic life forms.
So far, we have only ever seen them in computer simulations.
But some speculate we could find them among the ice particles in the rings of Uranus.
Plasma is the most common state of matter in the universe.
If complex, evolving plasma crystals really exist, and if they can be considered life,
they could be its most common form.
Or perhaps life is lurking in the polar opposite environment: Or perhaps life is lurking in the polar opposite environment: inside the hearts of dead stars.
When massive suns explode, some collapse into ultra dense cores called neutron stars.
Hulking masses of atomic nuclei, crammed together like sardines.
Conditions on the surface are mind-boggling— gravity is a hundred billion times stronger than Earth's.
But beneath their iron nuclei crust lies something strange:
a hot dense sea of neutrons and subatomic particles.
Stripped of their electron shells, these nuclei would obey entirely different laws of chemistry, based not on the electromagnetic force,
but the strong nuclear force which binds nuclei together.
In theory, these particles could link up to form larger macronuclei,
which could then combine into even bigger "super nuclei".
If so, then this bewildering environment would mimic the basic conditions for life—
heavy nucleon molecules, floating in a complex particle ocean.
Some scientists have proposed the unimaginable: exotic life forms drifting through the strange particle sea,
living, evolving, and dying on incomprehensibly fast time scales.
There's probably no chance of ever detecting such a strange breed of life.
But there may be hope of finding an even more exotic form.
Life is not something that has to evolve naturally.
It can be designed.
And once intelligence is introduced into the evolutionary process, a Pandora's box is opened.
Free from typical biological limitations, synthetic and machine-based life could be the most successful of all.
It could thrive almost anywhere, including the vacuum of space, opening up vast frontiers unavailable to biological organisms.
And compared to the glacial pace of natural selection, technological evolution allows exponentially faster growth,
adaptability, and resilience.
By some estimates, autonomous self-replicating machines could colonize an entire galaxy in as little as a million years.
We can't predict how hyperintelligent life would organize itself,
but in theory, there could be convergent evolution at play.
The electrical properties of silicon might make it a universal basis for machine intelligence,
a redemption for its biological shortcomings.
With all its protentional advantages, With all its protentional advantages, machine life may even be a universal endpoint: With all its protentional advantages, machine life may even be a universal endpoint: the apex of the evolutionary process.
As the universe ages, perhaps machine intelligence will come to dominate, and naturally occurring biological life
will be viewed as a quaint starting point.
Perhaps we ourselves will lead this transition, and the great human experiment would be merely a first link in a sprawling intergalactic chain of life.
in the end, we are still the only beings we know of in the museum of alien life.
To truly know ourselves, we will have to know: To truly know ourselves, we will have to know: are we the only ones?
Loren Eiseley has said that one does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human.
One day that eye may be that of an intelligent alien.
And the sooner we eschew our narrow view of evolution,
the sooner we can truly explore our ultimate origins and destinations.
We have seen what could be out there.
And we know how we might find it.
There's only one thing left to do.
Go looking. (SUBS FOR THE THIRD AND FINAL CHAPTER OF LIFE BEYOND WILL BE COMING SOON!)
Finding even a tiny alien microbe would be historic.
But we're not just looking for tiny microbes.
We're on a search for giants.
Are they out there?
Will we ever make contact?
How powerful could they be?
After 60 years of searching, After 60 years of searching, the game is about to change.
New research is revealing stunning possibilities.
From the planetary to the galactic
and beyond. melodysheep presents:
LIFE LIFE BEYOND
CHAPTER III CHAPTER III In search of Giants
The most complex object known in the universe is the Human brain.
These 86,000,000,000 neurons have given us the power to transform our planet.
But is this the best nature can do? We now know there are something like
10 billion-trillion habitable planets in the universe.
10 billion-trillion chances for the brain, to be eclipsed by something else.
The search for intelligent life is more than just a scientific curiosity.
It's driven by a deep desire to connect with something greater.
Finding an Alien civilization wouldn't just reveal we're not alone;
it could chart a new course of evolution for our species.
And unlike primitive life, Alien intelligence could be detectable thousands of light-years away
making them potentially easier to find.
What do they know that we don't?
And how do we make contact?
We're not the first to wonder.
I I MESSENGERS I MESSENGERS ᴿᵉᵛᵉᵃˡᶦⁿᵍ ᵂᵉ’ʳᵉ ᴺᵒᵗ ᴬˡᵒⁿᵉ
200 years ago, we dreamed of lighting huge rings of fire in the Sahara Desert to signal our presence
And in the 1860s, a French poet proposed a patchwork of giant mirrors,
reflecting sunlight to Mars in the form of The Big Dipper.
But if you want to send a signal across an Ocean of space Bonfires and reflected-sunlight won't help you much.
Even a nuclear war on a nearby planet would be virtually impossible to detect with current technology.
To really get your message across you need a form of light you can't even see.
Radio-waves are ideal for carrying information long distance because compared to other forms of light
They travel more freely through Interstellar gas and dust.
That's why SETI - That's why SETI - The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has focused almost entirely on scanning for radio signals,
whether intentional messages, or byproducts of technology.
Our own radio-transmissions have now traveled 100 light-years, and reached 75 star systems,
some of which include potentially habitable planets.
And if Alien intelligence lies beyond this Bubble of signals they could still infer life on Earth, by spotting Oxygen in our atmosphere.
Thanks to the SETI Institute and the recent 'Breakthrough Listen' project, we have now scanned tens of millions of stars for signals.
But despite all this, after 6-decades of searching...
Nothing. Only a series of false alarms and dead-end leads.
We call it The Great Silence.
But in reality, the search has barely even begun.
There are two trillion other galaxies out there that are still too far away for practical study.
If space or the size of all Earths-oceans, we would've searched less than a Pools-worth of Water
for signs of intelligent life.
On top of this, we might even be looking for the wrong thing.
There's more than one way to communicate across space.
An Alien life might view radio as primitive technology.
We have to consider every possible alternative. From the practical
to the unimaginable.
The search is now underway for a different type of signal.
One we could even spot with the naked-eye:
Laser light.
High-powered laser bursts can outshine a star by thousands of times,
and can carry far more Data-Per-Second than radio.
We would have to be in direct-line of sight to detect the beam.
But spread across many light-years, they would widen to encompass entire planets and moons.
Fleets of laser beacons could be used to sweep the entire galaxy,
like Alien Lighthouses, in a Cosmic Sea.
Thanks to a recent crowdfunding effort, plans are now in motion to monitor the entire night sky for laser pulses.
But while these bright flashes would be relatively easy to find, advanced life might be using something far more elusive...
Neutrinos... tiny subatomic particles that are streaming through you
by the trillions every second. These ghost particles can pass through entire planets
and not touch a single atom. It takes a giant room like this, to detect just a handful of them per day.
But researchers recently proved neutrino communication is possible, by sending a simple message through 240 meters of rock.
If advanced life is using them to communicate their signals could travel anywhere, through any obstacle
at the speed of light.
Their messages could be streaming through us right now, and we would have no idea.
or maybe intelligent life is taking an entirely different approach to communication.
Using space-time itself as a medium.
By manipulating high-gravity objects, they could in theory create pattern distortions of space-time,
which could ripple through the universe, in all directions.
But making gravity waves strong enough to be detectable would be extremely energy intensive.
Maybe they're up to something far simpler.
Placing giant sunshades into orbit around a star could block out starlight in distinct patterns,
like a kind of cosmic Morse code.
And even though it might take years to blink out a basic message, A system like this would require little effort to sustain.
But the most sci-fi possibility of all is that they have left messages in our DNA.
Some have proposed that certain sequences of our genes could contain hidden messages.
"Easter eggs" In our genetic code, placed by a life-designing higher intelligence.
But far-flung scenarios like this are overshadowed by a more sobering possibility.
Maybe we're just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Using a detailed computer model of our galaxy, researchers have estimated that intelligent life was
possibly most concentrated 4 billion years ago, and closer to the center of the galaxy.
If true, then we would exist on the outskirts. Llight-years away and billions of years too late
to a galactic Golden Age.
Maybe they were here. Millions of years ago...
Witnessed to a whole different planet...
By now, they might all be long gone, and we could be living in a Galactic Graveyard.
It may not be their signals that we find one day, but their relics.
As it turns out, our chances of finding an Alien civilization depend heavily on their average survival time.
If the average lifetime is something like 100 years, then they will blip in and out of existence, rarely overlapping,
and our chances of finding one alive are slim.
But if they survive for thousands of years or more, then our chances will skyrocket, as the potential for overlap expands.
But what if they're not communicating at all?
There's still a way we could find them.
II II ENGINEERS II ENGINEERS ᴵⁿ ˢᵉᵃʳᶜʰ ᵒᶠ ᴳᶦᵃⁿᵗˢ
We tend to assume that Alien intelligence would share our motivation to communicate.
But they may find the prospect of making contact too dangerous or too futile.
If this is the case, then we have to get more creative in our search.
In 2015, astronomers watched as this normal-seeming star began to dim and erratic waves,
unlike anything they'd seen before. The cause is probably a giant dust cloud, or a shattered moon blocking the light,
but it has all the hallmarks of something else... An Alien mega-structure.
And even though this explanation looks unlikely, it hints at a new way of intelligent life.
Not listening for signals, but looking for their technology directly;
not searching for messengers, but searching for engineers.
And to do that, we have to wonder: what mind-boggling Alien technology
should we be looking for?
Each Alien civilization would be wildly different, but classifying them by their energy usage
will give us insights into what echnology they might be using.
The Kardashev Scale divides them into 3 levels:
Type One would have a mastery of their home planet, using all the energy available on it.
Type Two would have mastery over their star, harnessing all its solar energy.
Type Three would have mastery over their entire galaxy, and would be more foreign to us than we are to amoeba.
But before we go searching for Alien super technology, how do we find civilizations like our own, that have yet to reach Type One?
When a typical planet passes in front of its star we see the starlight dim sharply.
But observing a more gradual fall off of starlight could be evidence of a dense ring of satellites -
A Clarke Belt.
Spotting this type of light curve wouldn't be a Smoking-gun, but rings around rocky planets are unusual,
and it could point us in the right direction.
Just as Alien vegetation would leave a Biosignature in its atmosphere,
Alien technology would leave a Technosignature.
Silicon produces a recognizable light curve similar to Chlorophyll.
Spotting this signal could point us to the presence of Alien Solar-cells.
And something more nefarious might also leave its mark on a foreign atmosphere...
Alien pollution.
Certain pollutants like Chlorofluorocarbons aren't produced by nature,
and could be detectable even in small amounts.
These chemicals could even linger long-after a civilization dies,
pointing us to the remains of an extinct Alien race.
Such a discovery could give us crucial guidance on how to avoid our own extinction.
And there's another universal hazard we would be familiar with:
Any civilization that uses huge amounts of energy will produce huge amounts of waste heat.
This excess heat could prove a serious threat, just as Climate Change does to us.
But it could also leave a Tell-tale Signal.
Finding waste heat radiating from Alien planets or other regions of space
could point the way to intelligent activity.
If not exterminated by their own technology, some life-forms may achieve total control over their planet,
and become a Type One civilization.
With this mastery would come incredible powers... control over all their world's ecosystems, its resources,
and even its weather.
But no matter how advanced, every planetary civilization will face the same cosmic threats we do.
Gamma-Ray Bursts, supernovas and asteroid impacts will be a risk factor for any terrestrial race.
Some might decide to flee to Intergalactic space, reducing their exposure to existential risks
making their home in the voids between the stars.
If so, then our search will have to encompass the entire swath of the universe.
But Alien life that decides to stay planted bound will need long-term protection.
The best way to protect your world would be the ultimate in-home defense:
a Planetary Shield.
These shields would cause a Tell-tale Dimming Pattern during transit,
and could also emit a detectable heat signature.
Large-scale astro-engineering like this would require a colossal amount of resources.
And the easiest way to get them may not be from mining planets,
but from mining asteroids.
They're resource-rich and easier to manipulate because of their lower gravity.
Searching distant asteroid fields for temperature or chemical anomalies, could indicate Alien mining activity.
Eventually though, asteroids might not be enough.
Since our civilization is so new, any other intelligent life is likely to be more advanced than us.
So we should think twice before revealing our presence.
But Alien super civilizations won't just be looking for resources.
They will also need staggering amounts of energy.
Stars output billions of times more energy than planets receive.
To harness it all requires building something truly mind-boggling:
Dyson Spheres are enormous mega-structures that encircle a star,
designed to capture its entire energy output.
They could also double as vast habitats for life.
A solid shell would be physically unstable, so instead of a sphere,
we might find a cloud objects: A Dyson Swarm...
No matter their design, they would generate an enormous amount of infrared waste heat,
and they could also eclipse or even block out the star's light entirely.
Dyson Spheres could also be built around black holes, which could have a smaller radius
and collect thousands of times more energy.
Any beings that come to harness their stars entire energy output will reach the next level on the Kardashev Scale:
A Type Two civilization.
This level of mastery would imply an astounding capability.
Star-lifting is the practice of harvesting stellar material, and could provide thousands of planets worth of resources.
This process would also allow you to lower the temperature of the star,
postponing its death by billions of years.
In about one billion years time our own sun will grow too hot for life on Earth.
If we ever find evidence of star-lifting it could Inspire us to one day do the same,
and prolong the game of life.
Eventually, there may be life that outgrows its star,
and needs even more energy.
To branch out across the galaxy, life-forms this advance will probably need
near light-speed travel.
And if they do have this capability, there's a chance we could catch them in the act.
Alien starships that hit the brakes at light speed could leave behind a long trail of ionized gas.
These trails might emit detectable infrared radiation.
Strokes of light, painted by masters of the universe...
Once life-forms have harnessed all the energy their galaxy can provide,
they will achieve unimaginable power: A Type Three civilization.
This cosmic virtuosity would be totally unfathomable to us.
Life that is built billions of Dyson Spheres, and can create stars at will.
In theory, their thirst for energy could make a whole galaxy go dark.
So one way to search for Type Three life-forms is to look for what's not there.
In distant space, there are huge voids between clusters of galaxies
where no light emanates. These voids were once thought to be evidence of advanced life
having harnessed the energy from every star in the region.
But it turns out, they are naturally occurring "features" of the universe,
and the recent analysis of nearby galaxies revealed no evidence of any galactic-scale civilizations.
If civilizations this advanced are out there, maybe they have chosen to remain invisible.
But if we're lucky, instead of hiding, they'll create something unmistakably alien.
In theory, cosmic architects could assemble an enormous planetary systems,
far more intricate than anything nature could produce:
One possible system that would be gravitationally stable involves 9 Sun-like stars orbiting a supermassive black hole,
which could support 550 Earth-like planets in habitable zones.
These artisanal solar systems could make ideal long-term habitats.
Or could even function as an Alien nature reserve, with each planet hosting a different strain of life.
It's hard to imagine any life-forms more advanced than this.
But in theory, there could be beings that control or created our universe itself.
Researchers are beginning to test the idea that reality itself is just a simulation,
or an experiment run by some higher order bead.
Anything this advanced would transcend our ideas of life itself,
as they would exist outside of time and space.
In a way, the search for intelligent life is an evolution of the age-old search for god.
Both are driven by a longing for truth, and connection with something bigger than ourselves...
And what if we do find a signal one day? What happens when the ancient dream becomes reality?
III III CONTACT III CONTACT ᶜᶦᵛᶦˡᶦᶻᵉ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵘⁿᶦᶜᵃᵗᶦᵒⁿ
Just knowing they're out there would profoundly change how we see ourselves.
For the first time, we would feel the true sense of cosmic brotherhood.
And studying their messages or technology could lead us to huge advancements,
and help secure our own long-term survival.
But the possibility of meaningful Two-way communication would be bleak.
Separated by hundreds or thousands of light-years, we would be studying these civilizations
as they were in the deep past.
And our experience of language could be entirely foreign to them.
But what if, after all our searching we never find another sign of intelligence?
What if we really are alone?
We can never be truly sure as there will always be distant galaxies too far to ever study.
But never finding any evidence would mean that our place in the universe is truly unique.
It would saddle us with an immense responsibility to keep the flame of intelligence alive.
Just as ancient civilizations speak to us through their monuments, we could build monuments of our own for future life to discover.
Cosmic time capsules preserving a record of our achievements, and our knowledge.
Perhaps other racers will do the same, and these memory vaults could become connected over time.
Each new civilization adding a link.
It could be our destiny to be the first link in this chain.
To be the founders of a Galactic Encyclopedia, built upon by future life-forms we will never meet...
For social creatures like us, staring up at a lonely night sky is a curse.
We are newcomers on the Cosmic stage, longing for connection and guidance.
It might take thousands of years to make a discovery.
But as long as the mystery endures, the search of giants will push on.
And if our search never bears fruit?
Then it is our chance Then it is our chance to become the giants ourselves.