Ask A Scientist© Astronomy Archive

Author:      debbie d wolski
Will we be able to contact other life forms in the future?  

Response #:  1 of 1
Author:      asmith
Hold on a second - what other life forms?  There is plenty of other life on
this planet, and we are in contact with it all the time!  But nobody knows
if life exists anywhere else in the universe (at least, nobody has proved
that it exists anywhere else).  That is the first problem - we do not know
if "other life forms" even exist.  There are actually a number of efforts
going on to try and detect radio signals that could come from other civili-
zations, but so far there is been no success at that.  And who knows if the
other civilization could be so advanced they do not use anything resembling
radio any more?  Or maybe they never discovered radio?  It is really hard to
make a good guess on this.  It seems likely, though, that if there is any
other life in the neighborhood of our solar system, we will find out within
the next 1000 years.