Difference between revisions of "Alien"
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| − | An alien is a person who is of another family, race, nation or planet than the people among whom he or she lives. An alien can also be an inhabitant of another planet. Many aliens exist in fictional works, such as the TV series [[Doctor Who]] and [[Star Trek]], but in real life there is no real evidence that there is any life anywhere in the universe except on earth. In | + | An '''alien''' is a person who is of another family, race, nation or planet than the people among whom he or she lives. An alien can also be an inhabitant of another planet. Many aliens exist in fictional works, such as the TV series [[Doctor Who]] and [[Star Trek]], but in real life there is no real evidence that there is any life anywhere in the universe except on earth. |
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| + | In 1996 a flurry of excitement took place when some tiny fossils of microbial organisms were found on a rock that had crashed down to earth after being knocked free of the gravitational influence of [[Mars]] by a asteroid or comet, but scientists are still undecided what could have caused these and many robotic spacecraft have been sent to Mars to try to answer this fundamental question. But apart from this, there is no evidence whatsoever of alien lifeforms. | ||
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| + | The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a program to scan the sky in radio bands likely to be used by other civilizations. Thousands of candidate nearby stars have been examined, but no signal has been found. In 1967 there was some excitement when a regular series of radio pulses were found, but this was determined to have natural causes and was the first detected [[pulsar]]. | ||
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[[category:culture]] | [[category:culture]] | ||
Revision as of 19:49, April 8, 2007
An alien is a person who is of another family, race, nation or planet than the people among whom he or she lives. An alien can also be an inhabitant of another planet. Many aliens exist in fictional works, such as the TV series Doctor Who and Star Trek, but in real life there is no real evidence that there is any life anywhere in the universe except on earth.
In 1996 a flurry of excitement took place when some tiny fossils of microbial organisms were found on a rock that had crashed down to earth after being knocked free of the gravitational influence of Mars by a asteroid or comet, but scientists are still undecided what could have caused these and many robotic spacecraft have been sent to Mars to try to answer this fundamental question. But apart from this, there is no evidence whatsoever of alien lifeforms.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a program to scan the sky in radio bands likely to be used by other civilizations. Thousands of candidate nearby stars have been examined, but no signal has been found. In 1967 there was some excitement when a regular series of radio pulses were found, but this was determined to have natural causes and was the first detected pulsar.