After human beings walked out of the earth with the help of science and technology, they began to explore and research the planets of the solar system. There are eight planets in the solar system, which one has received the most attention? I believe many people will answer Mars.
That’s right, Mars is the planet that humans have studied and explored the most since they stepped out of the earth. Why do scientists focus on Mars? Some people may say that it is because Mars is closer to us. In fact, the fact that Mars is closer to us is not the main reason. We must know that Venus is closer to us, but why don’t we focus on Venus?
The main reason why scientists pay the most attention to Mars is to see Mars as the second livable home for humans in the future. When mankind walked out of the earth to see the vast universe, everyone knew that the future mankind would inevitably not shrink on the planet earth. Getting out of the earth and emigrating to other planets is an inevitable way for human beings in the future.
Going to the interstellar and emigrating to the outer planets is an inevitable thing for every civilization that goes to the interstellar. Due to the limitation of technology, the migrating planets we can choose in the future can only be found in the solar system, and the habitable zone is undoubtedly the best area.
There are three planets in the habitable zone. In addition to the earth, Venus is a purgatory planet with a surface temperature of 460 degrees Celsius. Humans cannot survive in such a harsh ecological environment. Even if we can transform Venus in the future to make it suitable for human habitation, it is not the best choice for mankind. The reason is that Venus is closer to the sun, and the sun is constantly expanding, the temperature will get higher and higher, and the orbit of the earth will be hotter in the future.
Therefore, in terms of temperature, the new home we choose should be on the periphery of the earth, and only Mars is eligible for the habitable zone. Although Mars is also very desolate, compared to Venus, it can be regarded as a very good ecological environment.
Beginning in the 1960s, scientists began to launch probes to Mars. In more than half a century, humans have launched dozens of probes to Mars. Through these probes, we have a better understanding of Mars. In 1964, “Sailor 4” flew over Mars, and humans took the first photo of the surface of Mars.
Before the probe reaches Mars, we are still full of various illusions about Mars, and some people even fantasize about the existence of Martian civilization. But when the first picture of Mars was sent back to Earth, what we saw was a deadly world full of craters.
Mars is very desolate. Not only is there no Martian civilization as imagined, but there is not even a single grass. It is a world that is even more desolate than the earth’s desert. This result naturally makes many people feel very depressed. Human beings are creatures that like to live in groups, and they naturally feel lonely when they see the appearance of Mars.
So is Mars really desolate to nothing? As more and more probes land on Mars, and pictures of Mars are sent back to Earth, scientists are beginning to become happy again. The reason is that a large amount of research data shows that Mars once was not desolate, but a beautiful ecological planet no less than the earth, with a lot of liquid water on the surface.
It was only after Mars changed drastically that the ecology continued to deteriorate, the atmosphere became thinner and thinner, and the water on the surface continued to evaporate. The probe discovered a natural environment similar to the earth on the surface of Mars, with ancient rivers that communicate vertically and horizontally, and a constantly moving land plate.
Although there is no liquid water on the surface of Mars, there are many ancient relics of riverbeds. More importantly, the probe has discovered ice and liquid water with relatively high salinity at the two levels of Mars. Scientists believe that there may still be a lot of water storage under the desolate surface of Mars.
Moreover, the rover also discovered organic matter on Mars. These findings give us reason to believe that Mars may have bred life billions of years ago, and it is possible that there is still life lingering under the ice caps of the two poles.
After human beings walked out of the earth, they were full of strong curiosity about the existence of extraterrestrial life. If human beings land on Mars in the future and really discover life on Mars, will it be good news? It may be good news from the perspective of searching for extraterrestrial life, but the answers given by scientists scared people.
Humans have been looking for extraterrestrial life. If life is found on Mars, wouldn’t it be good news? I believe everyone thinks this is good news, because the discovery of life on Mars means that humans are not alone in the universe.
But if we think about it carefully, we will find that Mars’ discovery of life is not good news, but completely bad news. Why do you think so? If the solar system only has life on the earth, it means that the birth of life is extremely rare. But if life is found on Mars, it means that life is not uncommon in the universe, as long as the planet meets certain habitable conditions, life can be born.
How many planets are eligible for habitability in the universe? No one can give an accurate answer at the moment. Humanity’s technological strength is still very backward. We don’t even know how big the universe is, let alone how many habitable planets there are in the entire universe.
Although we don’t know how big the universe is, we can narrow it down to the Milky Way. There are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way with a diameter of 100,000 light-years, and there are basically unequal numbers of planets around the stars. Even if there is only one planet in each star system, then the entire Milky Way will have at least several Hundreds of billions of planets.
And even if the probability of habitable planets is only one in ten thousand, under a huge base, the number will be very large. It may not be less than hundreds of millions of habitable planets. Every habitable planet has the conditions for the birth of life. The existence of life may evolve intelligent life similar to human beings. They may also establish civilization and develop technology silently.
The universe has a long history of 13.8 billion years, and the nodes of civilization must be different. The number of star coefficients in the universe like the Milky Way is so large that we can’t take it into account. Even within the observable range of human beings, there are at least trillions. A large galaxy.
This means that there should be civilizations that appeared in the universe about the same time as humans, and there should also be powerful civilizations that appeared hundreds of millions or even billions of years earlier than us. It only took more than 300 years for human technology to develop to its current strength. Then the civilization in the universe that has developed tens of thousands of years more than human beings at least has the ability to navigate between stars.
Crossing distant galaxies is an impossible task for the current human civilization. But for an interstellar civilization, long-distance interstellar travel is not at all difficult for them.
According to this line of thinking, the universe should be very lively, even if we are limited in our ability to actively search for alien civilizations, it should not be difficult for those powerful interstellar civilizations to discover the solar system and find the earth.
But the reality is that we have not found any, not to mention the spacecraft traces of alien civilizations, even if it is the possible existence of Dyson spheres and other more powerful civilization traces, we have not found any. Isn’t this strange?
The universe we see is a dead silence, human beings are like a child standing on an isolated island shouting out, tearing his throat and getting no response. Where are they all? If life exists universally in the universe, then they should have already been in contact with humans or left some traces of civilization.
But now we have not found any, which makes scientists think of a possibility, that is, the “big filter theory”, which was proposed by Robin Hansen in 1996. The “big filter theory” believes that life needs to cross hurdles after being born from the very beginning to becoming an interstellar species, and one of these hurdles is almost impossible to cross. This hurdle is the so-called “big filter”. “It will eliminate almost all lives.”
The birth of life in the universe may be very common. As long as the conditions of livability are met, life will be born and evolve. However, most of life cannot finally evolve into intelligent life, even a small part of it eventually evolved into intelligent life and formed civilization. But later it will become extinct due to various reasons and disappear completely in the universe.
If this is the case, it means that humans cannot escape the big filter. In the future, they may encounter a certain hurdle and cannot cross the past, which will eventually lead to the end and disappearance of human civilization. So if the existence of life is found on Mars, it means that there is a high probability that there is a big filter in the universe. Because Martian life has not crossed that hurdle, it embarked on the path of extinction, and eventually became a passer-by in the universe.
This shows that if Mars finds traces of life or the existence of life in the future, it may be very bad news for mankind. After all, human beings as intelligent life do not want to be a passer-by in the universe, but can achieve eternity.