Review: The Secret Life Of The Universe by Nathalie Cabrol
While the astrobiologist author points out that it is highly unlikely that the earth is the only habitable planet in the universe, she stresses that it is here that we must decide our future as a species
Space has always fascinated man. The curious mind has always wondered if we are alone in the universe or if there are neighbours in outer space with whom we have not yet made contact. Those who grew up watching Star Trek with Captain Kirk and Mr Spock (first aired in 1966) have become even more captivated by the idea of aliens. Who can forget those iconic opening lines: ‘These are the voyages to explore strange new worlds, new civilizations... To boldly go where no man has gone before’?
Is it all fantasy? Could our earth, ‘the pale blue dot suspended in the vastness of space’, really be the sole system that supports life in the cosmos?
“Very unlikely and an awful waste of space,” says Nathalie Cabrol, astrobiologist and director of the Carl Sagan Centre at SETI Institute (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), California, in her latest book, The Secret Life Of The Universe: An Astrobiologist’s Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life. “With a minimum of 300 million exoplanets located in the habitable zone of their parent stars in our galaxy alone, thinking that we are alone in this cosmic ocean is simply statistical absurdity,” she writes.
The scientist-author, who has conducted research for NASA on how life adapts to extreme environments, believes we are “living in the golden age in astrobiology where our first steps bring the promise of prodigious discoveries”. She believes that even if we are still a long way from finding extra-terrestrials, the methods developed by astrobiology today will provide a way to search for life on other planetary worlds and open “our minds to the critical importance of maintaining the balance between life and environment to understand how habitability was lost or never was”.
Cabrol’s book, originally written in French, is a comprehensive journey through space investigations into what could make planets or moons habitable. It explains the abundance of the elementary compounds CHNOPS (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur), that constitute life as we know it, in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon, Titan, on the surface of Mars, on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, on comets, asteroids and even on dwarf planets like Ceres and Pluto. Cabrol says the distance of such cosmic bodies from their star, the axial tilts, temperatures, atmospheric conditions and various other factors all contribute to the possibility and sustenance of life.
As the book meanders across the “cosmic ocean”, it reveals much about various space missions that have brought about the realization that Earth is only one of the many ocean worlds in our solar system. Also, at one point in the history of the solar system, Venus, Earth and Mars had atmospheres that were similar in composition to each other. These observations have forced scientists to rethink previous ideas about where life and habitability are possible.
While Venus with its proximity to the sun may not have been conducive to life, Mars continues to fuel the imaginations of those who dream of confronting Martians someday. With the discovery and analysis of the Martian meteorite ‘Black Beauty’ and the discovery of water under its surface, Cabrol poses an interesting hypothesis for readers: what if we are all Martians? What if life first developed on Mars and astral collisions brought seeds of life from the red planet to Earth where it developed and survived?
While there is still hope of finding some sort of life on Mars, understanding how the loss of atmosphere, damaging ultraviolet radiation and chaotic climate changes may have transformed its biological record might provide a guide map for our own planet earth. With increasing greenhouse gases and temperatures due to human activity leading to changes in the habitability of earth, Cabrol asks a profound question: “Are we cutting the branch we are sitting on?” Are we Mars in the making? “We need to snap out of this illusion of invincibility and denial in front of natural disasters and intensifying heat,” she says.
Must we look at other habitable planetary worlds? As more possibilities open up with each new voyage into the space, NASA has proposed building habitable stations on the moon by 2040. However, will going to the moon or to Mars really save us? “Our space technology is nascent. All these initial efforts will be highly dependent on our planet for survival and for a long time,” writes Cabrol. Therefore, it is on earth that “we must decide our future as a species and as a civilization.”
Much remains to be discovered; there are many light years to traverse, and many stars and galaxies to be explored. We are still speculating about how life emerged, whether it was a single event or a gradual transition or whether what we understand today is the only visible demonstration of the evolution process of the universe. As American astronomer, scientist and author Carl Sagan once said, “We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready to set sail for the stars.” With Artificial Intelligence evolving at a fast pace, Sagan’s statement might be close to the truth and we might come face to face with potential signals from space. Of course, it is possible that the human mind might take longer to understand those signals.
For now, though, there is no concrete answer. At the end of Cabrol’s book, the reader is left pondering about the fate of the earth. Will life be wiped out on our planet or can we still do the course correction required to reverse current changes?
An engrossing read, The Secret Life Of The Universe warns that we are at the “crossroads of time”, a point where we have to decide who we are and who we want to become.
Shoma Abhyankar is an independent journalist.
