1. Life On Other Planets D. Crowley, 2007

2. Life On Other Planets To evaluate information on the existence of life on other planets Thursday, August 27, 2015

3. Do Aliens Exist Do you think aliens exist? Can you form an argument for / against aliens existing You have five minutes to speak about this with a partner, then split into two groups - either the groups which thinks aliens can (do?) exist, or that group that doesn’t think they can exist

4. Billions of galaxies There is more than a billion galaxies in the universe - each galaxy has millions of stars, of which the vast majority have planets orbiting them So chances are somewhere in the universe there will be a planet similar to Earth, able to support life (i.e. not too big; not too close / far from star) But what about evidence…

5. Task You are going to be split into pairs, then be assigned one of six characters You must read your characters views, and pass them on to the class (remember, this is not your personal view, but that of your character) Make a list of the evidence you think is solid, and evidence you would not use to base your belief on… You have ten minutes before the discussion

6. Discussion Give a brief explanation of your characters view Then tell us what evidence you think is solid (and why), and what evidence you would not base a belief on (and why)…

7. Life? So have you changed your mind about aliens existing?! To date we have no firm evidence of extra-terrestrial life - why is this evidence crucial? But the existence of such a huge number of other planets means, with good probability, that there are other planets like Earth which can support life How can we find other life?

8. Big The universe is very very big, so looking for life becomes a big job! There are various ways we can look for other signs of life… We can send spacecraft to other planets / moons to look for living life or evidence of their existence (e.g. fossils); use telescopes to observe other planets and look for tell-tale signs (such as the atmospheric changes); and use SETI

9. SETI The search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) looks for special radio signals which may have been sent from an alien transmitter Want to know more - visit www.seti.orgwww.seti.org You can help the search - type SETI @ home in a search engine Try the planet 10 world builder - see the ideal type of planet to support life http://www.solarsystem.org.uk/planet10/