A Skeptic’s Guide to Life In the Universe
This article first appeared as a Vic Skeptics discussion pamphlet and again here in December 2010.
The full range of our discussion pamphlets can be downloaded from our USEFUL INFO page.
by Peter Barrett, (Canberra Skeptics), updated 2016 by Ken Greatorex
It’s one of the great questions: is there life elsewhere in the universe, apart from the Earth? Skeptics would say, “Almost certainly, but at the moment we don’t know how likely it might be.”
Life thrives on Earth, particularly in the tropical and temperate latitudes. Life exists even in the harsh desert and polar regions. But most importantly, life has been found to exist in places previously thought inhospitable, such as inside rocks in the dry valleys of Antarctica or around geothermal vents, where the water is boiling hot. The fact that life can survive in such unlikely places dramatically increases the range of potential habitats for life elsewhere. So are there places where life could exist elsewhere in our own Solar System?