Scientists who are in positions of power and responsibility in NASA and in the astronomical community are overwhelmingly so committed to their belief in naturalistic philosophy, that they spend virtually their entire careers, and massive amounts of taxpayer money, in an attempt to prove it is true. It is amazing the lengths they go to in pursuit of this goal.
As for NASA, all of the Mars rovers, and many of the experiments they run, are specifically designed to search for evidence of life on the planet. Those who conceive of the missions, those who construct the experiments, and those who build the rovers are all committed to that goal. NASA has also sent satellites to various asteroids and planets within our solar system with instruments designed specifically to detect signs of life. And you don’t have to watch NASA’s TV channel very long before that purpose bubbles right to the top.
And what about the astronomers who man and monitor the various land and space based telescopes? Well, they too are scouring the heavens for any signs of life they can possibly find. Obviously, based on the distance we are from even the nearest stars, nothing can be observed directly, so they come up with various ingenious methods and theories in an attempt to discover alien life. In doing this, they have devised all kinds of telescopes that are able to peer into the heavens in different ways. They use various kinds of optical telescopes, those that measure light spectrums, such as ultraviolet, infrared, and X-rays, and even radio telescopes that detect sounds.
The observations they are able to make mostly involve taking measurements over time to figure out what directions different objects are moving, looking for light that appears and disappears to speculate about objects that can’t be detected directly by the telescopes themselves, observing the color patterns in the various stars to deduce their ages, and even listening for sound patterns that could indicate intelligent life.
Another thing these astronomers do is speculate about what kind of life forms might exist in the universe, and how they might be detected using the technology currently available. In fact, they have come up with all kinds of strange theories in their attempts to discover life.
One theory that periodically bubbles to the top is the existence of Dyson Spheres. A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that would encircle a star in order to captures a large percentage of its solar power output. This concept was first explored by Freeman Dyson. Dyson imagined a spacefaring civilization that would require more energy than could be generated from their home planet, and speculated how they could capture more from their own star. He imagined building a giant structure that would encircle their star that was capable of harvesting massive amounts of its energy.
One current theory that some scientists are exploring proposes that a Dyson sphere would necessarily alter the light coming from a particular star. They believe that if Earth astronomers can determine how to detect that altered light, it might give some evidence of intelligent life forms on other planets.
Over the years, making the kinds of distinctions necessary to observe something like that from the millions of stars that have already been detected, has been a completely impossible task. However, some scientists believe they have come up with a way to detect a Dyson sphere using optical and infrared data. They believe a Dyson structure would emit waste heat in the form of mid-infrared radiation that differs from natural infrared light.
As of this writing, these scientists have identified 53 star candidates that seem to have excess mid-infrared measurements. Of course, there are other possible explanations for these readings, so astronomers will have to look more deeply into these possibilities before they can make a definitive pronouncement.
But, of course, they will never actually be able to make a definitive finding about these things. Even the nearest star is over four light years away from earth, with the furthest are about 28 billion light years away. We are talking many trillions of miles. From those distances, we can’t observe anything directly and are relegated to measuring light flickers the best we can.
On top of that, modern astronomy is still clueless as to the actual structure of our universe. With the coming online of the latest space telescopes, astronomers are continuing to find all kinds of things that defy what they thought they already knew – and many of these new findings have them totally baffled.
So rather than specifically searching for extraterrestrial life, why aren’t these scientists starting their research from neutral ground. Why are they starting with a naturalistic bias that assumes it is possible for life to emerge out of non-life? They do it because naturalistic philosophy is their religion. They are convinced that the natural universe, operating by natural laws, is all that exists. With that starting point, there is no other possibility but that life had to have ultimately evolved out of non-life.
But that is not a scientific conclusion – it is a religious one. The truth is, all this searching for life in outer space is, for NASA and many astronomers, a religious quest – one that can never have an empirical conclusion. One that will always have to be believed by faith.