The Cosmos: Origins and Aliens

There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way alone. The observable universe may have 100 billion galaxies in it. It is unimaginable how many planets which are habitable may be in such a system.

In 1964, Nikolai Kardashev suggested that civilizations might exist at three levels: Type 1 where beings use fossil fuels, like we do on Earth, Type 2 where beings tap energy from their star, and Type 3 where beings tap energy from their galaxy. Since that time, other scientists have speculated that civilizations might go all the way up to a Type 7 civilization where beings have become pure energy.

Maybe civilizations arise and fall all the time, but the urge of intelligent beings is to leave some evidence of their existence behind. There is also the urge to seek out new life, let alone other civilizations.

The Cosmos: Origins and Aliens is a summary of thoughts of several noted physicists on YouTube, as well as some of their books, on topics like the Big Bang, string theory, multiverses, possibility of alien life and what created the whole business, including the possibility of God.

My objective is to summarize and translate all these complicated ideas into layman's language, hoping to get the general public interested in the new discoveries in outer space.

When the James Webb Telescope sent back the first 5 pictures from what it saw a million miles away from Earth on July 12, 2022, without space dust in its way, I was elated. The reach of its infrared eyes goes back 13.6 billion years, almost to the time of the Big Bang which itself has been estimated to have taken place a mere 13.8 billion years ago. Who knows what civilizations have come and gone since then in the life of the universe?

Outer space has always been a fascinating topic in my mind. How big is the universe? How many stars and galaxies are out there? Are we alone?

The new discoveries of exoplanets suggests that we are not alone! Chances are that life of some sort is out there, only the distances to other star systems is so immense that we, or they, will never cross interstellar space to meet. Too bad, or is it?