Somewhere In the Universe They Wonder

Out there, in the vastness of space, are people with telescopes looking here and there. Well, certainly there and maybe they’ve even looked here. An astronomer notes in his diary: “Medium sized planet rotating around medium sized star, far out from center of galaxy. Planet has too much water and not enough dry surface to sustain life. Further, planet is tilted on its axis so the northern and southern parts have different seasons at the same time, thus limiting crop growth.”

So much for us. We appear to be uninhabitable to people on another planet and, if my thoughts on the matter are correct, they have made the same mistake as we.

That other-planet astronomer we mentioned in the first paragraph is looking for life as he knows it; the only kind of life he has experienced. Therefore, the only kind he can imagine would be able to exist elsewhere.

So, as we gaze through the Hubble Space Telescope, we also make the same mistake: a planet like unto ourselves. Another Earth, another water planet with the same air mixture we breathe. Surprise, surprise! The Creator of the universe had some of His own ideas and they don’t always match our science.

What’s out there? Could be just about anything or anybody. It could be a Dr. Seuss book come alive with the most outlandish (for us) characters. We are life as we know it; they are life as it exists elsewhere.