Marat Ayrapetyan explains why we are still alone in the Universe
Do other civilisations exist, and if so, why has humanity not yet made contact with them? These questions have occupied generations of scientists, science fiction writers and dreamers alike. At the session "Geography of Hidden Worlds" of the Open Lecture Hall "Inventing the Future: Geography" at the National Centre RUSSIA, another attempt to approach the answer was made by Marat Ayrapetyan, Head of the Mars Simulation Mission Control Centre, author of the blog "Yura, We Will Make It!" and ambassador of the VK Techprosvet (Tech Enlightenment) project.
The space engineer recalled the famous Fermi paradox: if extraterrestrial life truly exists, why has humanity not yet received any convincing evidence of its presence?
"It turns out that either they are less intelligent than us and do not have the technology to reach us, or they deliberately avoid contact. As of today, there is no convincing evidence of the presence of extraterrestrial beings on Earth," said Marat Ayrapetyan.
The expert believes that other forms of life most certainly exist beyond the Solar System. According to him, they may differ so greatly from life on Earth that we have not yet learned how to recognise them.
"The Universe is vast, and there are many planets similar to Earth. I believe that there may be forms of life that are completely unlike ours. We are searching for something familiar — some kind of stereotypical green creatures. But what if there are forms of life we cannot even imagine and therefore are not yet able to identify? On many planets, including Mars and Venus, biosignatures have already been detected — indicators that may point to the presence of life. That is why I am inclined to believe that other forms of life do exist somewhere — so far away that, firstly, the signal takes a very long time to reach us, and secondly, we are not yet able to interpret what we observe," Marat Ayrapetyan concluded.
The Open Lecture Hall "Inventing the Future" is the educational track of the International Symposium "Inventing the Future". It is held quarterly and brings together experts from different countries to jointly develop positive scenarios for the future. The speakers’ ideas form the basis of neural videos, which audiences can evaluate, becoming co-authors of inspiring concepts for societal development.
