If we’re alone in the Universe, should we do anything about it? | Aeon Essays

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The ability to stir new life into being, all across the Universe, compels us to ask why life matters in the first place

The discovery of thousands of new planets outside our solar system (and the implication that there are likely billions of such planets and probably hundreds of billions more moons in our galaxy alone) has made the search for life infinitely more complicated. On the one hand, we developed better tools, which makes the search for life easier; on the other hand, we have many realistic possibilities to choose from. Physically possible does not equate to statistically probable. Where before we thought that the search for life would be akin to searching for a single tulip in a desert, we now see…

If we’re alone in the Universe, should we do anything about it? | Aeon Essays

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