‘DON’T ANNOY ALIENS’
Contacting ET life may put us in peril
■ by IAN MOLYNEAUX CONTACTING alien life is a “terrible idea” as it could invite other spe- cies to “rule Earth”, a top scientist said.
Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is set to launch later this year and it will peek into worlds at the far reaches of the universe.
Currently the Hubble Space Telescope is Earth’s most powerful piece of galactic technology but the JWST will allow scientists to see much further into the unknown.
Some scientists fear it could alert dangerous alien species to Earth’s presence.
String theorist Michio Kaku warned that we should think carefully about reaching out. He said: “Soon we’ll have the Webb telescope in orbit and we’ll have thousands of planets to look at.
“And that’s why I think the chances are quite high that we may make contact with an alien civilisation.
“There are some colleagues of mine that believe we should reach out to them.
“I think that’s a terrible idea. We all know what happened to Montezuma when he met Cortés in Mexico so many hundreds of years ago.
“Now, personally, I think that aliens out there would be friendly but we can’t gamble on it. I think we will make contact but we should do it very carefully.”
The Montezuma and Aztec Empire were eventually destroyed by the Spanish. The new telescope’s home will be some 1.5million kilometres from Earth and it should be in position by May 2022.
It will be 100 times stronger than Hubble and will scan thousands of potentially habitable worlds.