Here’s the latest article I wrote for the Cherwell (student newspaper) on extraterrestrial life.

Linkage

Life as we (don’t) know it

Planet Earth is under attack. Disc-like UFOs litter the night sky, radiating vertical beams through which silhouetted creatures descend. You clench onto your seat. It’s the movie’s climax: a fiery scene of human destruction and alien triumph. The orchestral music reaches a roaring crescendo and all too soon the film is over. But as realistic as CGI effects might be nowadays, there’s a reason they call it ‘science fiction’.

We often turn to sci-fi movies as a means of escaping from our comparatively mundane lives. But the question of extraterrestrial life is, to me, the greatest unsolved problem of science. Could it really be that, within the seemingly infinite expanse of the universe, our home is the only planet with the ingredients for life? If technologically advanced beings are ‘out there’, then why have we not found them? Continue reading »