Extra-terrestrial Life

describe some of the methods that astronomers use to obtain evidence for life (past or present) elsewhere in our Solar System
discuss the possible benefits and dangers of discovering extraterrestrial life.

Jodie Foster in the film Contact. She is the first to receive signals from E.T.	SETI is an organisation devoted to the search for extra terrestrial life. They scan the sky for signals the thousands of computers (perhaps even yours if you download their software) search for messages.	When the first pulsar was discovered in 1967 some scientists thought its pulsing radiation bursts were a message from an extra terrestrial civilisation.	Is there a secret army base called area 51? Do they specialise in alien research? Do they have an alien ship which crashed on Earth in the 50's?

So what would be the advantages to humankind if we were to make contact with extra terrestrial life?

Knowing we are not alone in the Universe would change the way we look at ourselves enormously.

Our knowledge of the Universe could increase dramatically in a very short time.

They may have technologies that they are willing to share with us, e.g. ways of producing clean energy.

However

The stars nearest to our own are about 5 light years away. This is a huge distance which would take thousands of years to travel in the spacecraft we have now. The fact that it would take 5 years at least for a radio signal to get there would make conversations extremely difficult.

If we were to make contact would they be friendly. If they were more intelligent than us then perhaps we would be viewed in a similar way to how we view animals.

They may bring diseases that we have no immunity to or our microbes may be deadly to them.

This plaque was attached to the Voyager space probe. After its mission to explore the planets it headed off into outer space. One day an alien species may come across this plaque and learn a bit about us.