What do you think would happen if we did find life on other planets?

What do you think would happen if we did find life on other planets?

Colin Pillinger (Professor of Planetary Sciences) gives expert video advice on: Do you think there will be a base on the moon?; Do you think we will colonize other planets?; What are the benefits of space science to humanity? and more...

Once you find life, you want to find out if it's life like on Earth or if it's life that is completely different. Now, if it was like life on Earth then it would have to have evolved differently. This is what gave Darwin the clue to evolution and Wallace, who also worked on it. This is what gave them the clue. All of a sudden they transported themselves from Europe, where they knew the biology, to South America, the Galapagos islands, and the far East Indes; they started finding different kinds of life, but the same kinds of life that evolved in different ways. That's how they came up with this idea that things mutate and become different. Now, if we were on a planet which had been separated from Earth for four and a half billion years, you can imagine different, real, diversions. So, you would study this to see if it is the same process as life on earth. If it wasn't the same as life on earth, then it didn't work on the same fundamental principles; it works on another set of principles. Now, that's even more fun because you now have two kinds of life that you can compare and contrast, and you might even find out how life started. This is another step back; everybody wants to know where they came from. How did suddenly something which was just lifeless compounds suddenly become a primitive organism, which then developed into a complicated organism, which then developed into us. We're certainly not the pinnacle of evolution. So, somewhere out there, there is somebody who has evolved farther than us, for sure. Well, I believe there is anyway, and I think there are a lot of people who would accept that.