- In your last book, entitled “The Light of the Stars,” you write that there are millions of extraterrestrial civilizations. Why do not we see them?

“Extraterrestrial civilizations are far removed from us, and a large-scale search is required to detect them.”

- Douglas Vakoch, president of METI , which sends messages to extraterrestrial civilizations, claims that aliens may be afraid to make contact.

- There is logic in this. Stephen Hawking also spoke in this regard. For some reason, we tend to imagine advanced civilizations whose age exceeds the age of humanity, and ascribe to them deliberately peaceful intentions. But such hypotheses are groundless. The sending of messages to extraterrestrial civilizations should be approached with greater caution. It is possible that among the stars there are ill-wishers.

  • Caution should be taken when sending messages to extraterrestrial civilizations.
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  • © Diana Robinson Photography

- But for them, security concerns may be important? After all, there is the so-called "theory of the dark forest", according to which an over-developed civilization will seek to hide its existence so that it is not destroyed by another, more advanced one.

“The Dark Forest Theory is very curious. She got this name after the work of a Chinese science fiction writer (a popular contemporary writer in the genre of science fiction, Liu Qixin. - RT) . When sending messages does not prevent to be more careful. You should not project your own ideas about morality, norms of behavior, safety, and so on onto other civilizations. In this case, you can search for unintentional signals from the outside. By the way, hypothetical external observers can detect us by the same signals from a long distance.

- There are statements that aliens not only exist, but also visit the Earth.

- If we are talking about UFOs as a plate with backlight, then this is ridiculous. Similar messages appear either due to poor-quality observations, or a person takes for a UFO the detached stage of a rocket or some atmospheric phenomenon. There is no evidence of a UFO. This is unscientific.

- The Fermi paradox of the absence of visible traces of the activities of alien civilizations is partly due to the hypothesis of a "great filter", a catastrophe like nuclear war or climate change, which prevented the development of intelligent civilizations. How would you rate the chances of humanity to survive such an event? Or perhaps it is already in the past?

- We have already overcome several such “filters”, it is not clear whether the “great” has remained in the past. The origin of life, the development of intelligence - if such events are considered “great filters”, then we have overcome them. What awaits us in the future is an open question. In my book, I write that climate change is one of those things that await any civilization. If it uses energy in its development, it will inevitably provoke climate change. Perhaps this is not a “great filter”, but it can deter civilization from entering a new stage of development.

Is there really no other way but to gradually destroy our planet, and then frantically try to save it?”

- I would say not “destroy”, but “change”, and this is very difficult to avoid. After all, what is civilization? A certain biological species has successfully developed, multiplied and knows how to use the planet’s energy resources in its work.

Without changing the climate, it is impossible to build a civilization on a planetary scale. And if civilization is smart enough, it will interact correctly with its planet. Otherwise, it will lead to disaster. Be that as it may, I think that any civilization sooner or later brings its planet to serious changes.

- Over the past hundred years, the world's population has reached seven billion people, and the growth rate is not reduced. How to maintain the ecology of the planet, if there are so many people on it? Or should the population inevitably decline?

- Yes, many of the problems associated with climate change depend on the size of the population and on what kind of energy people use. For example, the United States and China are the main drivers of climate change. The issue of rapid demographic growth will inevitably have to be addressed. The best way is to empower women in society. They will have more options for development, and population growth will quickly stabilize. Indeed, in most developed countries there is no population explosion.

- Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk declared that the planet is doomed and it is necessary to look for an opportunity to leave it. If so, what is better - to send ark ships with immigrants into space in search of habitable planets or to terramorph others ?

- We will not leave the earth for a very long time. At first, we are waiting for the development of the solar system. I can easily imagine that in two hundred years millions or even billions of people will live on Mars. But Earth is the only planet where we can walk without a spacesuit. The idea that somewhere a spare planet awaits us is hopeless. To learn how to live in space, we need to learn how to live on Earth. This planet is our future, and we will have to figure it out.

- The Earth was surprisingly adapted for life - so many parameters coincided: from the atmosphere and tectonics to the position in the solar system. How could this happen again somewhere else?

- In fact, there were very few projects to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. If space was an ocean, then the volume of the studied water would fit in one bath. According to calculations, life could appear on ten billion trillions of planets. And if we can be sure of the existence of life, the possibility of the existence of civilization can hardly be denied.

- You are engaged in exobiology and the study of exocivilizations. What is it and how are studies conducted?

- In the course of work, we expect to find technomarkers - some signs of the presence of civilizations. Civilization is a mechanism for generating and applying energy. What energy - built on solar energy or fossil fuels - will have the greatest impact on the planet? Can civilization survive climate change? What strategies will help you survive? Physical and mathematical modeling can give an answer to how civilization and the planet should coexist.

  • solar system
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- How much can you learn about exoplanets? Indeed, modern telescopes are rather weak to make out their surface.

- We have already achieved a lot, and the equipment is constantly being improved. We study the light reflected by exoplanets, determine the presence of carbon dioxide in their atmosphere. And in the next twenty to thirty years, telescopes will make it possible to study Earth-type exoplanets, to assess whether they have living conditions, by the presence of atmospheric oxygen or methane.

Do you think alien life will also be carbon?”

- Answer: "Unknown." Carbon has become the basis of life on Earth for a reason. Its atom loves to join compounds, its structure makes it easy to form complex biological mechanisms. It is difficult to find a similar element in the universe. Yes, they talk about silicon, but still its qualities are different. To shape life, carbon is as important as water. So I would put it on him. But the universe does not occupy resourcefulness. We are trying to understand what life would be like if it was formed from other molecules. On exoplanets, we need to look for such signs.

- Can the body of intelligent aliens be like a human?

- Scientists often ask themselves: “Is it possible that evolution, despite them, makes the same choice?” Take, for example, wings. On Earth, we observed their development under completely different conditions. Does the same thing happen to the mind? I don’t think so. Personally, I see no reason why, for the presence of intelligence, a creature should be upright, have arms and thumbs spaced apart from the rest. Octopuses are very developed, but they have none of the above, and the brain is very peculiar.

And I would not project the details of how the situation on Earth developed on the processes taking place in the rest of the Universe. Whenever we did this, we saw things that completely broke our stereotypes. When we first began to find planets from other stars, their location did not fit into the logic of the solar system. Our giants Jupiter and Saturn are located closer to the periphery. But in the very first star system that we discovered, the orbit of the local Jupiter was closer to the star than that of our Mercury. So surprises await us.

- Among other things, you study the interaction of science and religion. Do you think humanity can live without religious thought?

- One should distinguish between organized religion and human spirituality, the feeling that there is more to the world than formulas. Science is a powerful tool for understanding the world, but the truths that it finds are not the only ones in the world. There are still truths of art, music, poetry - our experience in the world is not limited to scientific explanations. In my book I write about the idea of ​​the sacred. It is related to the attitude to the world and to its perception. And she will never disappear anywhere. And should not.

See the full version of the interview on RTD.