7-1-I-Search-ChristineP

= Aliens: Truth vs Fiction = by Christine P. media type="custom" key="799085" When we think about aliens, we think of "little green men" and UFOs. But are aliens really green? Or are do they look exactly like humans, except that they live on the other side of the galaxy? Are aliens even real at all? I've seen many movies concerning aliens before. __Aliens__ movies are actually one of my favorite type of movies to watch. However, I started seriously wondering about aliens ever since the semester in 5th or 6th grade when the whole grade only watched alien movies. It was totally uneducational. But anyway, my teacher, Ms. Coffman, showed the movie ET first (you know the movie when the little alien says, "ET phone home..."), then Roswell, and then some PG 13 rated movie (that I think that should have really been rated R) that was based on a true story. I think that the last movie really "hooked" me into the topic of aliens. In the end, a written epilogue came up and said that the alien-napped victims in the movie took a lie-detector test and they all came out positive (except for one guy who came out negative and then turned out positive after another trial). I wondered if the lie-detector test was accurate, so to sate my curiosity about aliens, I decided to investigate and try to find out as much as possible about aliens.  Whenever I want to look something up, I start with Wikipedia.com. Even though it's on the internet and may not be reliable, but Mrs. Brownstone, my technology teacher, aid it was pretty reliable and is a great place to start to research. Anyway, I got a whole list of UFO sightings (which the article's title was ironically called "List of UFO Sightings") from Wikipedia and I learned something amazing. Did you know that UFO sightings go back to the 15th century? Well, on October 11, 1492, Christopher Columbus while on the sailing on the Santa Maria, saw a great glimmering light. It disappeared and reappeared several times during the night. Over the years, more and more "sightings" and "alleged" UFO were popping up all over the world. But, it seems that most of the "alleged" UFO sightings were reported in America. Is this a coincidence? Extraterrestrial activity was starting to get busy after World War II, especially after what happened in Roswell, New Mexico. On June 21, 1947, an unidentified object fell from the sky and came crashing down towards Roswell. At first, the Roswell Army Air Force publicly announced that the object that fell was an unknown flying **disk with unknown personnel.** This immediately caught the media's attention, and millions of rumors and versions of what happened in Roswell were scattered all across America. But soon after, the government again publicly announced that the "UFO" was only the debris of a crashed weather balloon and the "unknown personnel" were only crash dummies, but many citizens were skeptical. They believed that the government was lying to them. Well, an owner of a morgue was a skeptic as well. The owner claimed that the government requested several sturdy child-sized coffins--the kinds that can't be opened ever again--by the new few weeks. He also claimed his friend, a female nurse who "saw" the "aliens" in the autopsy, went missing after a few weeks and was never to be found again. Were aliens really in Roswell or is this only fiction? (Wikipedia)

Along with my new found memories of Roswell, I found something interesting on Wikipedia about our solar system. It is suggested that nine bodies in the solar system, 5 moons and 4 planets, are thought to be capable of holding life, but only creatures that are similar to shrimps and planktons.Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are one of the three moons out of 63 moons. These natural satellites might contain an underground ocean and support simple microbes or plants. Jupiter itself may support small floating animals that go around in its gas rings. Saturn and two of its moons, Enceladus and Titan, are also speculated to contain life. Saturn may have floating animals like Jupiter. Enceladus has geothermal activity and water vapor was found. There is a possibility that there is an underground ocean heated by tidal effects. Titan has the most similar atmosphere like Earth and even though it doesn't have oceans worth of water, it has seasonal liquid hydrocarbon lakes on the surface. Venus is also speculated to contain living organisms. Scientists believe that there may be simple microbes living in the cloud layers 50 kilometers above the surface. Many other bodies in space have been suggested to host life for microbes. Scientists are constantly looking into space and searching for life "out there", but so far no good and everything is looking "iffy". Will a definite answer ever be found? (Wikipedia)

Ironically, Mars (the last planet in our solar system that may contain life) might actually have had or still have "Martians". Many believe that liquid water had existed on Mars long ago and that there still might be liquid water underneath the surface. Recent photographs of the surface of the "red planet" shows evidence of past flows of a liquid (possibly water). I've also found an article in January 2004 edition of __National Geographic__ that explains more thoroughly about how there might be Martians in Mars. It's called "Mars Revisited". Even though the title isn't that creative, it held really good information. Well in one section of the article, I found something really interesting. Did you know that Mars has a wild, fluctuating tilt? Well, because Mars does tilt every so often, water formed. When Mars' axis was tilted heavily, it got more exposure from the sun, which allowed the ice to melt and to create water. Currently, Mars is tilting at an angle of 25 degrees. Mars is getting less exposure from the sun, and is now in an "Ice Age".("Mars Revisited")

But, so far, I've been just getting information from the internet and magazines. But to really learn something, it's better to interview someone (that is //reliable//). Mrs. Brownstone suggested that I interview BSGE's very own physics teacher, Mr. Hoffer. For about two weeks I've been thinking about what to ask him and how aliens had anything to do with physics. But then, when Shantinu told me about the Drake Equation... I still didn't get how physics dealt with aliens! (And just to let you know, the Drake Equation is in the speculative fields of exobiology and search for alien life--aka "SETI". Also, Mr. Hoffer wasn't really help. He said he didn't know anything about the Drake Equation, so I turned back to Wikipedia.org. And I found what the Drake equation stood for. Well, Frank Drake was the one who created the Drake Equation and the Drake Equation is a speculative formula to estimate about how many aliens there are out in the universe. So basically, I was never able to interview anybody.

Well actually managed to get something close to an interview. I posted this question about the Drake Equation on LinkedIn.com. And this is what he, Maarten Van Wesel responded back to me: "Since the Drake Equation has one letter indicating the fraction of ‘the planets that can potentially support life per star’ that will actually develop some form of life and he sets this number to 1 (100 % will develop life), Drake assumes some form of extra terrestrial life will exist.

The outcome of the Drake Equation depends much on the numbers we put in there. Drake found 10 as the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might be able to communicate. If we however would assume that only 1 in 10 planets that could develop some form of life would develop it, the outcome of the Drake Equation would be 1."(Van Wesel)   Also if you want to find out how many aliens (hypothetically) there are in the universe, you can go to http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/listening/drake.html. All you need to do is fill in the numbers in the boxes and presto, there have your (hypothetical) answer of how many aliens there are in the universe.

"The Drake equation states that: where: //N// is the number of [|civilizations] in our galaxy with which we might hope to be able to communicate; and //R//* is the average rate of [|star] formation in [|our galaxy]//f////p// is the fraction of those stars that have [|planets]//n////e// is the average number of planets that can potentially support [|life] per star that has planets//f//ℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point//f////i// is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop [|intelligent] life//f////c// is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space//L// is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space. The number of stars in the galaxy now, //N//*, is related to the star formation rate //R//* by , where //T////g// is the age of the galaxy. Assuming for simplicity that //R//* is constant, then N* = R* //T////g// and the Drake equation can be rewritten into an alternate form phrased in terms of the more easily observable value, //N//*.[|[1]] ..." (Wikipedia)   However, other than the fact that I had an unsuccessful interview., I found that SETI interested me. Mrs. Brownstone mentioned it to me before in an email. Well like I said before SETI is just an abbreviation for "search for alien life. More specifically, SETI is a bunch of experiments trying to detect aliens by using radios. The first modern SETI experiment was conducted by Frank Drake in 1960. In 1961, the the first SETI conference was held in Green Bank, Virginia. Quickly, the Soviet Union became interested with the SETI project in the 1960's (which I think is what lead to the Space Race later on in the years) and in the 1970's, NASA funded and supported the SETI project. ("Drake Equation") Through this research, I have found out that finding the answer to the question "Are aliens real or not?" is still far from my reach. Quite frankly, I think I came up with more questions than answers. However, I did learn a lot of cool things about aliens and a teeny weeny bit about UFOs. I learned more about the Roswell incident, and I'm glad I did--it's such an interesting topic. And I always thought that aliens would look a lot like humans, but I learned that humans wouldn't be able to see them since possible existing aliens would most likely look like microbes. And also, I think humans should lay off on the alien topic for a moment and concentrate on Earth for a second. If people keep trashing Earth like this, finding a way to stop the pollution would be more important than finding aliens in outer space.

PS On my student home page, there is this video which Mrs. Brownstone put. It talks a bout a game this gut made called Spores. Spores concentrates on how possible it is for tiny microorganisms are able to evolve into bigger "animals". You make your own creatures and can interact with other creatures that other players created. There are various stages in the game. Towards the end there is the space colonization stage where the aliens go out in space and start colonizing in different planets. > >

**Works Cited**

 * "Extraterrestrial Life." __Wikipedia__. 10 Apr. 2008. 24 Mar. 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_life>]
 * "Drake Equation." __Wikipedia__. 13 Apr. 2008. 16 Apr. 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation>.].
 * Morton, Oliver. "Mars Revisited." National Geographic Jan. 2004: 2-31.
 * "SETI." __Wikipedia__. 25 Apr. 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI>.]
 * "Life Beyond Earth-Drake Equation." __PBS__. 30 Apr. 2008 <[|http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/listening/drake.html>.]
 * Van Wesel, Maarten. Interview with Christine Park. __LinkedIn__. Apr.-May 2008.

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