5 January 2021

Lewis Dartnell for The Guardian about radio waves from the closest star to the sun

Professor Lewis Dartnell, Professor of Science Communication, was quoted in an article by The Guardian about radio waves from the Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun.

Lewis Dartnell

Professor Dartnell said: “We’ve been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities. If there is intelligent life there, it would almost certainly have spread much more widely across the galaxy. The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality.”

He later added: “It’s hard to imagine how you can have a stable climatic system and all the things you need to get from bacteria, which are hardy, up to intelligent animal life forms, which certainly are not.”

Read the full article on The Guardian website. 
 

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