UA astronomer attends Vatican conference on extraterrestrials

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Sandy Rathbun - View Bio

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Centuries ago in Rome, scientists who believed in extra terrestrial life were burned at the stake. Now, in 2009, the Vatican hosted a conference on extraterrestrial life and a Arizona astronomer was there.

In the 1982 movie, E.T. phoned home. Last week he phoned Rome. University of Arizona Astronomy Professor Chris Impey was at the conference. He admits aliens might sound like a controversial topic for the Catholic Church.

Impey says, "In straight Catholic theology there's no problem believing in an old universe. And the Catholic Church of course has Jesuit astronomers who do research astronomy, some in Arizona."

Impey's office looks out of this world. He has a painting of God and E.T. hanging on his wall. A plastic green Martian stands on the floor. Impey has written a book about the possibility of alien life and he teaches a class about it.

He says the purpose of the Vatican meeting was to talk about where to look for it. He says, "Astronomers expect the most likely form of life to detect first will be microbial, you know, germs, bacteria, bugs."

What does Impey think about the possibility of intelligent life out there? He says, "The statistics for most scientists are pretty compelling. Everything we know about stars and planets says there are about a billion habitable [places], just in the Milky Way."

Impey says the implications of finding intelligent life could be staggering. He says, "There's the prospect that we might get helped, or saved if you like, by intelligent aliens. And, then of course, the flipside of that is the fear that if they're more advanced, don't like us and don't care about us, then maybe they might not want us around."

When could we know, at least about microbial life? Impey predicts, "This profound question 'are we alone in the universe' is a question that we can answer in our lifetimes."