Why Can't We See Evidence of Alien Life?

Zašto ne možemo vidjeti dokaze izvanzemaljskog života?

Prevoditelj: Suzana Baric Recezent: Ivan Stamenković

(Glazba)

Negdje u tom prostranom svemiru

Somewhere out there in that vast universe,

mora postojati beskonačno mnogo planeta koji vrve životom,

there must surely be countless other planets teeming with life,

ali zašto ne vidimo nikakve dokaze toga?

but why don't we see any evidence of it?

Ovo slavno pitanje postavio je Enrico Fermi 1950. godine:

Well, this is the famous question asked by Enrico Fermi in 1950:

"Where is everybody?"

"Gdje su svi?"

Conspiracy theorists claim that UFOs are visiting all the time

Teoretičari zavjere tvrde da nas NLO-i stalno posjećuju,

and the reports are just being covered up,

a da se izvješća o tome zataškavaju,

but honestly, they aren't very convincing.

ali, iskreno, nisu veoma uvjerljivi.

But that leaves a real riddle.

No, to ostavlja pravu zagonetku.

In the past year, the Kepler space observatory

Posljednjih godina, svemirski teleskop Kepler pronašao je

has found hundreds of planets just around nearby stars,

stotine planeta oko obližnjih zvijezda

i ako izvedemo zaključak iz tog podatka,

and if you extrapolate that data,

it looks like there could be half a trillion planets

čini se da bi moglo biti pola trilijuna planeta

samo u našoj galaksiji.

just in our own galaxy.

If any one in 10,000 has conditions that might support a form of life,

Ako jedan od njih 10000 ima uvjete

koji bi mogli podržavati neki oblik života,

that's still 50 million possible life-harboring planets

to je čak 50 milijuna planeta s uvjetima pogodnim za život

right here in the Milky Way.

u Mliječnoj stazi.

Evo zagonetke.

So here's the riddle.

Our Earth didn't form

Naša Zemlja nastala je tek 9 milijardi godina nakon Velikog praska.

until about 9 billion years after the Big Bang.

Nebrojeni drugi planeti u našoj galaksiji

Countless other planets in our galaxy should have formed earlier

trebali su nastati ranije i pružiti priliku životu da započne

and given life a chance to get underway

milijardama, ili zasigurno milijunima, godina

billions or certainly many millions of years

earlier than happened on Earth.

ranije nego se to dogodilo na Zemlji.

If just a few of them had spawned intelligent life

Kad bi samo nekoliko njih iznjedrilo inteligentan život

and started creating technologies,

i započelo se stvaranje tehnologija,

te tehnologije imale bi milijune godina

those technologies would have had millions of years

da postanu kompleksne i snažne.

to grow in complexity and power.

Na Zemlji

On Earth,

smo vidjeli koliko

we've seen how dramatically technology can accelerate

tehnologija može napredovati u samo 100 godina.

in just 100 years.

Kroz milijune godina, inteligentna izvanzemaljska civilizacija

In millions of years, an intelligent alien civilization

could easily have spread out across the galaxy,

lako se mogla proširiti galaksijom,

perhaps creating giant energy-harvesting artifacts,

možda i stvoriti ogromne rukotvorine za sakupljanje energije

or fleets of colonizing spaceships,

ili flote kolonizacijskih svemirskih brodova

or glorious works of art that fill the night sky.

ili veličanstvena umjetnička djela koja ispunjavaju noćno nebo.

Barem biste mislili da bi nam otkrili svoju prisutnost,

At the very least, you'd think they'd be revealing their presence,

namjerno ili kako već,

deliberately or otherwise,

pomoću elektromagnetskih signala

through electromagnetic signals of one kind or another.

neke vrste. Ali ne vidimo nikakav uvjerljiv dokaz.

And yet we see no convincing evidence of any of it.

Zašto?

Why?

Well, there are numerous possible answers,

Postoje mnogobrojni mogući odgovori,

some of them quite dark.

neki od njih dosta mračni.

Maybe a single, superintelligent civilization

Možda je jedna jedina, super-inteligentna civilizacija

uistinu zavladala galaksijom

has indeed taken over the galaxy,

and has imposed strict radio silence

i naredila strogu radio tišinu

because it's paranoid of any potential competitors.

zato što se boji drugih mogućih rivala.

It's just sitting there ready to obliterate

Samo čeka da uništi

anything that becomes a threat.

sve što joj postane prijetnja.

Or maybe they're not that intelligent.

Ili možda nisu toliko inteligentni,

Or perhaps, the evolution of an intelligence

ili je možda evolucija inteligencije

capable of creating sophisticated technology

sposobne za stvaranje sofisticirane tehnologije

is far rarer than we've assumed.

mnogo rjeđa no što smo mislili.

After all,

Naposljetku, to se dogodilo samo jednom na Zemlji u 4 milijarde godina.

it's only happened once on Earth

in 4 billion years.

Maybe even that was incredibly lucky.

Možda je i to bila nevjerojatna sreća.

Maybe we are the first such civilization in our galaxy.

Možda smo prva takva civilizacija u našoj galaksiji.

Ili možda civilizacija nosi sa sobom

Or, perhaps, civilization carries with it

the seeds of its own destruction

sjeme vlastitog uništenja

through the inability to control the technologies it creates.

kroz nemogućnost kontrole tehnologije koju stvara.

Ali postoje brojni drugi odgovori koji daju nadu.

But there are numerous more hopeful answers.

For a start, we're not looking that hard,

Za početak, ni ne tražimo toliko pažljivo. A trošimo previše novca na to.

and we're spending a pitiful amount of money on it.

Samo sićušan dio zvijezda u našoj galaksiji

Only a tiny fraction of the stars in our galaxy

have really been looked at closely for signs of interesting signals.

pomno smo pregledali tražeći naznake zanimljivih signala.

Ili ne tražimo na pravi način.

And perhaps, we're not looking the right way.

Možda kako se civilizacije razvijaju,

Maybe as civilizations develop,

they quickly discover communication technologies

ubrzo otkriju komunikacijske tehnologije

far more sophisticated and useful than electromagnetic waves.

koje su sofisticiranije i korisnije od elektromagnetskih valova.

Možda se sve odvija

Maybe all the action takes place

inside the mysterious recently discovered dark matter,

unutar nedavno otkrivene misteriozne tamne tvari

or dark energy,

ili tamne energije, za koju se čini da daje većinu mase svemiru.

that appear to account for most of the universe's mass.

Ili možda tražimo u krivom mjerilu.

Or maybe we're looking at the wrong scale.

Možda su inteligentne civilizacije shvatile

Perhaps intelligent civilizations come to realize

that life is ultimately just complex patterns of information

da je život na kraju krajeva tek kompleksni uzorci informacija

interacting with each other in a beautiful way,

koji se međusobno prepliću na prekrasan način

and that can happen more efficiently at a small scale.

te da se to može djelotvornije odvijati u manjem mjerilu.

So just as on Earth, clunky stereo systems have shrunk to beautiful, tiny iPods,

Kako su se zemaljski nezgrapni stereo sustavi

smanjili na prekrasne, malene iPod-e, možda se sam inteligentan život,

maybe intelligent life itself,

kako bi smanjio svoj utjecaj na okoliš,

in order to reduce its footprint on the environment,

has turned itself microscopic,

smanjio na mikroskopsku veličinu

so the Solar System might be teeming with aliens,

pa tako možda Sunčev sustav vrvi izvanzemaljcima, a mi ih samo ne primjećujemo.

and we're just not noticing them.

Možda su same ideje u našim glavama oblik izvanzemaljskog života.

Maybe the very ideas in our heads are a form of alien life.

Well, okay, that's a crazy thought.

U redu, to je luda zamisao.

The aliens made me say it.

Izvanzemaljci su me prisilili da to kažem.

But it is cool that ideas do seem to have a life all of their own,

Ali, zgodno je što ideje kao da vode vlastiti život

i nadžive svoje stvaraoce.

and that they outlive their creators.

Možda je biološki život prolazna faza.

Maybe biological life is just a passing phase.

Kroz sljedećih 15 godina,

Well, within the next 15 years,

we could start seeing real spectroscopic information

mogli bismo početi vidjeti prave spektroskopske informacije

from promising nearby planets

od obećavajućih obližnjih planeta koji će otkriti koliko su spremni za život.

that will reveal just how life-friendly they might be.

U međuvremenu SETI, Potraga za izvanzemaljskom inteligencijom,

And meanwhile SETI,

the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence,

sad objavljuje svoje podatke javnosti

is now releasing its data to the public

so that millions of citizen scientists, maybe including you,

pa milijuni znanstvenika građana, možda čak i vi,

can bring the power of the crowd to join the search.

mogu snagom mase prisustvovati u potrazi.

Na Zemlji se izvode čudesni pokusi

And here on Earth, amazing experiments are being done

kako bi se stvorio život iz ničega,

to try to create life from scratch,

life that might be very different from the DNA forms we know.

život koji bi mogao biti mnogo drugačiji od DNK oblika koje znamo.

All of this will help us understand

Sve to pomoći će nam razumjeti

vrvi li svemir životom

whether the universe is teeming with life

or, whether indeed,

ili smo zaista sami.

it's just us.

Bilo koji odgovor na svoj način

Either answer, in its own way,

is awe-inspiring,

izaziva strahopoštovanje.

because even if we are alone,

Ako i jesmo sami,

the fact that we think and dream,

činjenica da razmišljamo i sanjamo i postavljamo ta pitanja

and ask these questions

mogla bi biti jedna od najvažnijih činjenica o svemiru.

might yet turn out to be one of the most important facts

about the universe.

Imam još jednu dobru vijest za vas.

And I have one more piece of good news for you.

The quest for knowledge and understanding never gets dull.

Potraga za znanjem i razumijevanjem nikad ne dosadi.

It doesn't. It's actually the opposite.

Nikad. Zapravo je suprotno tome. Što više znate,

The more you know,

the more amazing the world seems.

svijet se čini čudesnijim.

And it's the crazy possibilities, the unanswered questions,

A lude mogućnosti, neodgovorena pitanja,

that pull us forward.

guraju nas naprijed. Pa ostanite znatiželjnima.

So, stay curious.