Curiosity is the great motivator for scientists, but one expert believes it might be best if they fought their urges before contacting aliens. An advanced species of extraterrestrials could easily view humans as primitive or a nuisance and wipe us out accordingly, Jacco van Loon, astrophysicist and director of Keele Observatory at Keele University, warned.
Life on Earth is a newcomer in comparison to the age of the Universe.
The first signs of life on our planet appeared around 3.5 billion years ago, but the Universe has been around more than 10 billion years longer.
If life is not unique to Earth, it is extremely feasible that something came before us and would be much more advanced, assuming these aliens followed the same trajectory as life on Earth.
And judging by humanity’s past, a more technologically advanced species often has no regard for civilisations not as advanced on the technological timescale, such as when Europeans encountered native Americans, and almost killed them off in order to conquer the New World.
Prof van Loon was answering a question on why aliens have yet to contact Earth when he said an advanced species could easily wipe us out.
He wrote in The Conversation: “[Aliens] may … be interested in our planet. Earth has perfect conditions for life.
“Aliens might need another home, if for some reason – such as climate change, nuclear war or an enormous asteroid impact – they had to leave their own planet.
“It’s also possible that they would not be looking for friendship.
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“Conversations across the vastness of space take many years, and travel much longer still.
“Some aliens might simply not be interested in life beyond their own world.
On the other hand, it may be that life such as ours is actually very common. With so many worlds and civilisations to choose from, we may simply not yet have caught their eye.
“If that is the case, we might soon detect alien life around nearby stars for ourselves.”
