Hawking: Aliens exist, best avoided

If you would like to visit when Columbus landed 'in America

'The aliens are' out and the Earth and 'better pay attention to them.' The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says. To restore the view of the scientist and 'The Sunday Times on its website. Aliens exist only on some planets, equivalent to microbes or simple animals: the kind of life that dominated the Earth for almost its entire history. 'If aliens were to visit us, they could exploit the land and resources, such as when Columbus landing 'in America'.

This is the text of art. (In English) from the site of the Sunday Times

The Aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least According to Stephen Hawking. He has extraterrestrials Suggested That Are Almost Certain to exist - but instead of seeking them out That, Humanity Should Be doing all it can to avoid That Any contact.

The suggestions as in a new documentary series In Which Hawking, one of the world's leading scientists, Will Set Out His latest thinking on some of the universe's greatest mysteries.

Alien life, he will suggest, is Almost Certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but Perhaps in the center of stars or even floating in Interplanetary space.

Hawking's logic on aliens is, For Him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, containing Hundreds of Millions Each of stars. In Such a big place, Earth is Unlikely to be the only planet where life has Evolved.

"To my Mathematical Brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said. "The real challenge is to work out what aliens Might Actually be like."

The answer, he Suggests, Most of It Is that will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals - the sort of life has dominated Earth for That Most Of ITS history.

His one-scenes documentary for the Discovery Channel shows herds of two-legged herbivores browsing on an alien cliff-face where They Are picked off by flying, yellow lizard-like predators. Another shows glowing fluorescent aquatic animals forming vast shoals in the oceans thought to underlie the thick ice coating Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.

Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses Them to lead on to a serious point: that Could Be A Few intelligent life forms and poses a threat. Contact with Hawking Believes That Could Be Such a species devastating for Humanity.

He Suggests That Might aliens simply raid Earth for ITS resources and then move on: "We only have to look at Ourselves to see how intelligent life Might Develop Into Something we would not want to meet. The image They Might exist in massive ships, HAVING used up all the resources from Their home planet. Such advanced aliens Perhaps Would Become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets They can reach. "

He concludes That Trying to make contact with alien races is "a little too risky." He said: "If aliens ever visit us, I think the Outcome Would Be When Christopher Columbus much as first landed in America, Which Did not turn out very well for the Native Americans."

The completion of the documentary marks a triumph for Hawking, now 68, who is Paralysed by motor neurone disease and has very limited Powers of communication. The project Took HIM and His producers three years, he insisted on rewriting During Which large chunks of the script and checking the filming.

John Smithson, executive producer for Discovery, said: "He wanted to make a program That Was entertaining for a general audience as well as scientific and that's a tough job, Given the complexity of the ideas Involved."

The Possibility of Suggested Hawking has alien life before but Have Been His views clarified by a series of scientific breakthroughs, Such as the discovery, since 1995, more than 450 planets orbiting of distant stars, planets are showing That a common phenomenon.

So far, all the new planets found to Have Been larger than Earth, but only Because The telescopes used to detect Them are not sensitive enough to detect Earth-sized bodies at Such distances.

Another breakthrough is the discovery That life on Earth has proven Able to colonise ITS Most Extreme environments. If life can survive there and evolving, scientists reason, then Perhaps nowhere is out of bounds.

Hawking's belief in aliens places HIM in good scientific company. In His recent Wonders of the Solar System BBC series, Professor Brian Cox backed the idea, too, Suggesting Mars, Europa and Titan, a moon of Saturn, as Likely places to look.

Similarly, Lord Rees, the Astronomer Royal, warned in a lecture discussed earlier this year That Might aliens evidence to be beyond human understanding.

"I suspect there Could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can not conceive," he said. "Just as a chimpanzee can not understand quantum theory, It Could Be That There Are Aspects of reality are beyond the capacity of our brains."

Stephen Hawking's Universe begins on the Discovery Channel on Sunday May 9 at 9pm

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