Thesearchforetlifeintheunivers
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Chapter-1 (The Grand Cosmos) - Why Extra-terrestrials.............................................................. 1 - In the Beginning....................................................................... 5 - The other Fantastic Four.......................................................... 8 - Let there be Light................................................................... 14 - To Be or not to Be.................................................................. 16 - Future from the Beyond......................................................... 23 Chapter-2 (Religions, Ancient Astronauts, Histories, UFOs & E.Ts) - The Sacred Whispers............................................................. 26 - The Ancient Astronauts Theory............................................. 30 - UFO s in Medieval Paintings.................................................. 34 - Ancient Astronauts or Ancient Archeology?........................ 35 - UFOs themselves................................................................... 38 - The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life: The Beginning.............44 Chapter-3 (Echoes from our Solar District) -The Story So Far..................................................................... 50 -The Water Worlds................................................................... 50 -Solar System: A very brief Tour.............................................. 52 - The Red Planet...................................................................... 53 - The Evening Star................................................................... 58 - The Lone Satellite.................................................................. 59 - The Jupiterian Sixth............................................................... 64 - The Sixth of Saturn................................................................ 66 - The Mighty Titan.................................................................... 66 - The Galilean Candidate......................................................... 68 I - A New Earth?......................................................................... 68 - Tale of the Dark Sky............................................................... 68 - From the Land of the Ancients............................................... 70 Chapter 4 (Life on Earth) - The Lore and the Legends..................................................... 74 - The Pregnant Earth................................................................ 79 - Cosmos Calling.................................................................... 83 - The Stages of Evolution: The tales of Life on Earth............... 86 1. The Hadean Period ...................................................... 87 2. The Archaean Period & The Proterozoic Era................ 87 3. The Vendian Period....................................................... 88 4. The Cambrian Period.................................................... 89 5. The Ordovician Period................................................... 90 6. The Silurian Period........................................................ 93 7. The Devonian Period..................................................... 94 8. The Carboniferous Period............................................. 95 9. The Permian Period....................................................... 95 10. The Triassic Period....................................................... 96 11.The Jurassic Period....................................................... 97 12.The Cretaceaous Period................................................ 99 13.The Palaeocene Epoch................................................102 14.The Eocene Epoch.......................................................103 15.The Oligocene Epoch...................................................107 16.The Miocene Epoch......................................................108 17.The Pliocene Epoch.................................................... 109 18.The Pleistocene Epoch................................................ 110 19.The Holocene Epoch................................................... 110 - The Brain Factor.................................................................. 111 - Life itself: The Sparks that Fueled the Fire.......................... 115 - One Earth to Many............................................................... 121 Chapter-5 (Calling All Aliens) - The Quest beyond the Sky....................................................124 -Drake Equation......................................................................125 II - The Science of the Seeking................................................. 127 - Promises of Gliese............................................................... 128 - Cosmic Criteria for Life......................................................... 131 - Kepler Kaleidoscopes.......................................................... 132 - The Star Factor.................................................................... 134 - The Liquid Factor................................................................. 142 - The Light Factor................................................................... 143 - The Size Factor.....................................................................143 - The Flight-Path Factor......................................................... 145 - Life in Extremes................................................................... 145 - The Alien Planets...so far................................................... 146 - Anybody Out There?.............................................................152 - The Contact: A History......................................................... 153 - How to make The Contact ..................................................154 - Hello E.T, Here we come..................................................... 158 - The Pioneer Journeys.......................................................... 159 - The Voyagers Voyages........................................................ 162 - The Other Attempts.............................................................. 164 - SETI & Project Ozma........................................................... 165 - The Wow! Signal.................................................................. 170 - False Alarms........................................................................ 173 - Magical Meteorites & the Falling Aliens ............................. 176 - The Big Bright Future........................................................... 180 - The Antimatter Rocketry...................................................... 184 - Interstellar Space Travel: Imaginations, Wondrous & Magical Voyages................................................................................. 189 - The Truth is, Surely, Out There........................................... 194 Epilogues - Of Humans & Extra-Terrestrials............................................197 ***** III Chapter-1 (The Grand Cosmos) Why Extra-terrestrials Since the ancients of times, when humankind first learned to look at the stars and mused over the majestic grandeur that this colossal universe celebrates, man always wondered, whether he is absolutely alone or there is life in distant planets out there, perhaps somewhere far and deep in the galaxies and possibly beyond. In those olden nights, when sky was clear and visible, unlike our present day fogged and tainted urban sky laden with many different kinds of pollutants, our ancestors would speculate and even aspire on the possibility of life on other planets, hoping to find a clue here and there, now and then, on the grand possibility that life exists, not just here on Earth, but elsewhere in the universe as well. And the search continued. For thousands of years, since the time we, the people, learned to reason and apply logic in our everyday existence, all of us at one point or another wondered about the possibility of extra-terrestrial life-forms, possibly even intelligent ones at it too. And with the application of science and steered by the blessings of modern day technologies, the search for life on other planets continues with a heightened energy that has opened up many incredible windows in the sky and made this ancient quest more thrilling. Any day now, there might just be that press conference by the NASA elites that would say, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are not alone in this Universe . In the meantime, let s notice a remarkable aspect about our own planet. The strangest thing about this 4.54 billion year old dear Earth of ours is that, whatever we need to survive and flourish as a species and as a civilization, all that can be found here on this magnificent blue planet. And this truly makes this 3rd planet from the Sun unique and so far, spectacularly, one of a kind. And given the astonishing significances of our planet, it was the ancients belief that our planet Earth was the 1 centre of the universe. But this idea, somewhat quite selfish, couldn t stand the test of time. How this revolutionary idea that Earth is not at the centre of the universe came to be is one of a fascinating one. It all began on January 7th, 1610, when the esteemed Italian astronomer Galileo Galilee aimed his telescope towards the planet Jupiter and noticed three small stars near the planet, one of which was off to the west and the other two were to the east, all lying in a straight line. The observation from the subsequent nights revealed that all three stars were now positioned on the west of Jupiter however still in a straight