ALIEN ENCOUNTERS
The search for extraterrestrial life continues apace
METHANOGENESIS
In recent months, the scientific search for extraterrestrial life has been hotting up. Researchers examining data from the 2005 Cassini mission to Saturn have drastically increased the probability that there could be life on one of its moons, Enceladus. Enceladus has a completely frozen surface, but it is thought that a huge ocean of liquid water hides beneath this. At the moon’s south pole there are fractures in the ice, and Cassini found these had geysers blasting water ice and a wide range of chemicals from them which it was able to sample. The chemicals included dihydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), which are of considerable interest to astrobiologists searching for life, particularly as Enceladus was producing far more methane than expected.
On Earth, there are microbes that make methane by combining dihydrogen and carbon dioxide by a process known as methanogenesis. Régis Ferrière, an associate professor in the University of Arizona’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and his team have now run simulations to assess the probability that Enceladus’s methane was of biological origin. What they found was that physical reactions on the moon could produce some methane, but nowhere near enough to account for the amount found by Cassini. When they factored in the potential amount that could be produced by methanogenesis in micro-organisms, though, they nicely matched what Cassini had observed. While inorganic processes not observed on Earth could be making this extra methane, Ferrière said that “biological methanogenesis appears to be compatible with the data – in other words, we can’t discard the ‘life hypothesis’ as highly improbable.” space.com, 7 July 2021.
PROJECT GALILEO
If you want to be more ambitious and look for intelligent extraterrestrials, theoretical physicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University has announced a new project to search for alien visitors to the Solar System by looking for their technosignatures (traces of technology). Loeb is best known for his suggestion that the cigar-shaped interstellar object dubbed ‘Oumuamua, that whizzed through the Solar System in 2017, might be some kind of alien object – a light sail, antenna, or maybe a spaceship (see FT404:14).
Named Project Galileo (see FT410:30), this new venture came about as a result of several wealthy individuals reading Loeb’s book Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent
Life Beyond Earth and getting in touch with him to offer support. Four of them have now provided $1.75 million to set up a systematic search for objects lurking in our immediate neighbourhood that could be the product of extraterrestrial intelligences; the project, though, ultimately aims to raise at least 10 times this amount.
Project Galileo has already recruited several well-known astronomers and researchers from other fields, although Loeb admits not everyone he approached responded positively. “The science community should be open-minded. That’s how we make progress,” he said. They intend to use a combination of existing telescopes and ones currently under construction to scan the Solar System for the arrival of ‘Oumuamua-like objects so that astronomers have longer to study them. ‘Oumuamua was only found as it was on its way out of the Solar System, meaning there was only a two- month window to study it before it was out of range. Loeb also hopes to design and build a launch-ready mission, either with agencies like NASA or private companies, to be sent to the next
‘Oumuamua-like object to arrive.
In addition to searching for transient objects zipping through our Solar System, Project Galileo will have two other strands. Firstly, they want to take a closer look at UAP phenomena, following the recent US Government report on them (see FT409:48-53), to see if they might reveal an extraterrestrial origin. “The Government is the most conservative organisation you can think about… for it to admit that it doesn’t know what UAPs are is a very significant statement,” said Loeb. Secondly, they want to look closely at objects orbiting the Earth to see if any turn out to be alien satellites; this would be done by using artificial intelligence to analyse data from existing survey telescopes that track orbiting objects larger than 10cm (4in) in size.
Critics have pointed out that there are existing projects that essentially do most of what Project Galileo plans to, and that there is no evidence that UAPs have any connection with extraterrestrials. Alan Fitzsimmons of Queen’s University Belfast, co-leader of the International Space Science Institute’s ‘Oumuamua investigation team, welcomed some aspects of Project Galileo but said, “OK, that’s bollocks,” about the UAP element. Loeb has characterised some colleagues as blinkered and prejudiced against the search for technosignatures, but acknowledges that his quest “takes people out of their comfort zone”.
However, Project Galileo is still relatively conservative in its aims – they will not be considering fringe science like zero-point energy as possible explanations for UAP behaviour, intending to stick to known physics, and they will not be doing retrospective investigations, so cases like Roswell and Rendlesham remain firmly outside their remit, as do alien abductions. They will be insisting on complete transparency, so will not be using military data that comes with confidentiality requirements, and will be publishing all their findings in peer-reviewed, publicly available journals, assuming any will have them. Science, 26 July 2021.
TIKTOK TIME TRAVELLER
The Project Galileo team may not have long to wait if someone making waves on TikTok is right. @futuretimetraveller claims to be exactly that – a time traveller from the future, 2491 in fact. Like jazz legend Sun Ra, they also claim to have been born on the gas giant Saturn, although they say they are still human. In a video that does not show @futuretimetraveller’s face, just clouds and text, they claim that aliens will arrive on Earth on 24 May 2022. Apparently, they will be “7 foot 4” tall, with “long shaped skulls”, a “dark grey” complexion and “distorted appearance”. The video, which has been viewed over 90,000 times, explains that “This group of Aliens are called Nirons and come in peace and don’t mean to harm.” The US, however, ends up attacking the Nirons, starting the first of several “interdimensional wars”, which Earth loses with disastrous consequences. Ladbible. com, 9 July 2021.