After 11 years of painstaking observations, researchers announced April 15 they had detected a trio of extrasolar planets orbiting Upsilon Andromedae, a star similar to our own sun about 44 light-years from Earth. Into this mix waded a few theologians, who are starting to work on how the discovery of extraterrestrial life might recast notions of God. The fact that we have SETI illustrates our cosmic impulse at socialization. Some scientists, such as Harvard University anthropologist Irven DeVore, don't care how many planets the astronomers manage to count. I look at evolution and I see indifference and capriciousness.
Researchers are eager to find out.
Kenneth Nealson, NASA's top astrobiologist, is leading a quartet of Mars missions over the next decade designed to retrieve rocks from the surface and scour them for hints of microbial life. Although SETI rents radio telescopes and systematically listens to portions of the night sky for signals that might indicate war, transportation, energy-making or communication of an advanced technological society, Nealson suspects the majority of life in the universe would be of a more humble sort. As the lead project scientist on the NASA Mars robotic missions, Nealson is very conservative about the likelihood of lucking onto extrasolar life in a few scoops of debris from Mars. When pinned down, he thinks Callisto, a moon of Jupiter, might be the best candidate for nonterrestrial life in this solar system. Astronomer Gingerich said this was similar to the King of Denmark supplying a ton of gold to support Tycho Brahe's 16th-century observatory.