Life Cannot Exist in Outer Space, an Essay fanfic

This essay was supposed to be from the oppisite of the student's veiw, I do actually believe that aliens exist but was told to contest this opinion. This is my grade ten exam for English Writing.

Are there actually little green men watching the human race from above, leaving clues and messages to their existence? Most likely the only aliens humans will ever make contact with are of the political, and human, sort. Despite the advanced technology available to scientists today it is impossible to prove that aliens do exist because planets outside of our solar system cannot be observed; even the closest stars are light-years away. If a planet similar to Earth were ever found there are no guarantees that it would have all the necessary attributes needed for humans to survive or thrive. Our race has many needs and wants Earth provides for all of them. The chances of another world providing the same exact qualities are quite slim due to the amount of variables. Just as scientists are unable to contact extraterrestrial life, so to the non-existent beings have not contacted us. Ordinary everyday things can explain most crop circles and UFO sightings. Until the proper technology is invented, it is impossible to prove that life exists on other planets.

Finding planets outside of our solar system is an extremely difficult task; even the largest of planets around the closest of stars are impossible to actually see. The strongest of telescopes, Hubble, orbits around our world sending images of unprecedented quality to the Earthlings watching from below, but even the great Hubble has its limits. Planets give off very little light they show mostly reflected light from the star they orbit. An example of the difficulty of seeing planets in orbit of stars is of a firefly on the edge of a spotlight; were it not for the spotlight the firefly could be noticed but the spotlight’s blinding brightness makes the firefly all but invisible. There are a few ways to detect planets such as the Wobbly Star technique, or astrometry, which uses the gravitational pull of planets to their mother sun to discern if planets are there. If the star’s motion over a period is in a wavy line then it is possible a planet is in orbit, but there are other explanations for this as well. Another flaw to astrometry is that even a planet of Jupiter’s mass would have very little visible effect on a star (Aust Internet). The assumption of life on other planets is nothing but a wild hypothesis, brought on by man’s desire to know where life came from. Did life forms outside of our solar system create us? Are there answers out there of our human origins? There are no scientific facts that prove that life can exist elsewhere in the universe. We cannot find planets and therefore cannot find proof of extraterrestrial inhabitants outside of our solar system. Scientific examinations of the universe outside of our solar system have thus far come up empty of life. Technology needs to be created so humans can view planets in other solar systems and galaxies, only then will we be able to see if life is out there.

Duplicating the delicate balance that humans and other intelligent life require would be nearly impossible. There is a subtle enviroment humans need to exist which consists of oxygen, water, moderate temperatures, and protection from poisonous gases, and of course food and nutrients. Humans also have psychological needs as well, human interaction is important to keep us happy and mentally healthy, or maybe at least some sort of entertainment (“Plan to Survive” Internet). Studies have been done to see if humans could live on other planets inside our solar system, but Earth is the only planet here that can currently support life sufficiently. The most likely places life could possibly thrive other than Earth are Venus, Mars, Europa (Jupiter’s smallest moon), and Titan (Satun’s biggest moon). All of these planets and moons have reasons why life does not live on them:

Venus has got too high surface pressure, the temperature is too high and the atmosphere is too toxic… Venus also has a slow retrograde motion that makes a day longer than a year, this makes the insulation very uneven on the surface, which gives very large temperature variations and life takes a long time to adapt to temperature variations. On Mars the pressure on the surface is too low for human life to exist. The temperature could be right, if the atmosphere were thicker and contained more greenhouse gases. Europa is so small and weighs so little, it cannot keep an atmosphere and therefore it could probably never be able to support life above the surface... Titan has got the second thickest atmosphere after Venus, but also this is toxic to most terrestrial life. (“Variations and Stability in the Atmospheres of Planets” Internet).

There are many variables to consider when the planets were formed, maybe only the exact circumstances that Earth was formed under could cause life to begin. From a religious standpoint why would God create more than one world? Would He not have to die for each and every one of these planets? There are just no planets out in the universe that could support life complex or simple. Humans themselves have many needs, not to mention wants, and living minimally is not the human race’s strong point. North America is especially bad to our world, using up all our resources in wild abandon. What other planet could possibly support the human race’s endless wants? It is obvious that no other planet in our solar system can, and so far no evidence has been presented that anywhere else in the universe can either.

Unidentified Flying Objects, lights in the sky, and crop circles can all be explained as natural occurrences, despite the claims as being signs from aliens. Lights in the sky happen all the time, the phenomena is called lightning, it is a wondrous array in spectacular colors and shapes. One type of this amazing natural beauty that can explain orbs of light in the sky is Ball Lightning. The size of ball lightning varies; usually they range between the size of a walnut to the size of a balloon. Ball lightning can pass through objects, bounce off them and even burn through them. They can sometimes follow the air currents so seem to take specific paths (Saucier 265). Besides the fact that ball lightning can explain lights in the sky what of other types of UFOs, well Alexander Gordon Smith says “95 of all UFO sightings were explained by ordinary things such as weather balloons” (page unknown). That technically means that 95 of all UFOs have been identified, and 5 to remain unidentified, and most are probably unidentified due to lack of evidence on the matter. Crop circles are a little more difficult to explain as so little is known about them, but there are more things on this globe than are explained. A personal hypothesis is the similarities between crop circles and snowflakes, both are in geometrical shapes, no two are exactly alike, and both phenomena are unexplained as to why they are beautiful. Crop circles are just on a larger scale. Alien contact does not exist; UFOs, and all other clues to the existence of extraterrestrial life are simply another part of the natural world.

Every proof and every hard fact found thus far in research has been that life cannot survive outside of Earth. We cannot see other planets so cannot see other life throughout the universe, even with the strongest of telescopes, planets outside of our solar system are simply too far away to view. Even if we were actually able to observe said planets it is against the odds that one would have all the necessary requirements for a human or other intelligent life to thrive. Messages left on our planet by aliens also do not exist; they are simply normal functions of this world. Without more positive evidence, which cannot be acquired at this point in time, on there actually being life in outer space we cannot assume that it does in fact subsist.

Works Cited

Aust, Jerold. “Planet Hunters: The Search for Life in Outer Space.” Online. Internet. 11 January, 2007. Available: .o

"Plan to Survive.” Online. Internet. 16, January 2007. Available: http://nasaexplorer.o ?id031125144859

Smith, Alexander Gordon. “1001 Questions and Answers.” Leicestershire: Armadillo Books, 2005.

“Variation and Stability in the Atmospheres of Planets.” Online. Internet. Available: .

Note: For sources take space out of o rg.

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