Skip to main content

Gods out there

An artist's impression of earth vs k2-18b - from here


Is there a planet out there somewhere with life on it? Our scientists have done pretty much research already and more is going on. As far as I know, the nearest planet that has the potential to sustain life is an exoplanet that our scientists have named K2-18b. It is a Hycean planet, which means there is possibly hydrogen and water-ocean on it. [Hycean is portmanteau of hydrogen and ocean.] Exoplanet means that it doesn’t belong to our Solar System though it is in the habitable zone, though it is 120 light-years away from our earth.

K2-18 is the sun of K2-18b. [I guess that’s quite a convenient way of naming things in science. Naming them Petre and Paul, for example, would have been as inconvenient as it is irrational.] K2-18 is dwarf star; that is, a relatively small star of low luminosity. “A cool star!” our new gen would say. However, the planet's size can be quite intimidating: 8.6 times as big as the earth.

NASA’s James Webb Telescope suggests the presence of carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide on K2-18b. This planet has the potential to possess hydrogen-rich atmosphere and water ocean-covered surface.

Whenever I hear about the possibility of life on another planet, my first thought is whether there will be as many gods and demons there too as our own planet has. A friend of mine accuses me of perversity because of this thought though I don’t know why thoughts about gods should be perverse in any way. Will the creatures on those planets be fighting with each other in the names of those gods too as we do here? Or will they be more intelligent? Really spiritual?

A few years ago, I read a novel about life on another planet where a Christian pastor from the earth reaches to sate the spiritual thirst of the creatures there: The Book of Strange New Things. Spirituality can be painful even on another planet!

I’m waiting for James Webb and other technology to teach me more – both about other planets and the divine beings there.

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanSeptember 13, 2023 at 12:41 PM

    Hari Om
    Where there is life there will be that eternal struggle called survival. Where that exists it follows there will be competition for resources. This builds to conflict and all living things face it. If they dey develop self awareness, then the curiosity of why will drive enquiry...and development of theories such as "an originator" from which all arose... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pradeep NairSeptember 13, 2023 at 8:49 PM

    To me, life on another planet is still a fantasy ... If there has to be one, it will have to be a form of life that is different from what we have here. So, everything else will also be different ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 13, 2023 at 9:00 PM

      Yes, I too believe that life on another planet will be quite different. I am pretty sure they will be more sensible than us :)

      Delete
  3. SGSeptember 13, 2023 at 11:41 PM

    These scientists should have consulted with Elon Musk before naming the planet. Elon named 3 of his kids - X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Techno Mechanicus. HeHeHe

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anita SabatSeptember 14, 2023 at 12:48 AM

    They have found a fossil of a non-human-like creature in Mexico.
    Looks like aliens have been visiting Planet Earth from the past hundreds of years...
    The way science is advancing, we will know about the system in their planets in a couple of years!

    ReplyDelete
  5. magiceyeSeptember 15, 2023 at 6:32 PM

    More minds to conquer!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Pooja MahimkarSeptember 19, 2023 at 12:34 PM

    It would be a shame if we are alone in this universe, imagine we being just alone.

    ReplyDelete
  7. CareenaSeptember 22, 2023 at 11:51 AM

    I'm sure we'll find many similarities between our gods and thier gods!

    ReplyDelete
  8. indu chhibberFebruary 17, 2024 at 11:44 AM

    Why worry about life on other planets,we can't even live harmoniously on our own.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Shooting an Elephant

George Orwell [1903-1950] We had an anthology of classical essays as part of our undergrad English course. Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell was one of the essays. The horror of political hegemony is the core theme of the essay. Orwell was a subdivisional police officer of the British Empire in Burma (today Myanmar) when he was forced to shoot an elephant. The elephant had gone musth (an Urdu term for the temporary insanity of male elephants when they are in need of a female) and Orwell was asked to control the commotion created by the giant creature. By the time Orwell reached with his gun, the elephant had become normal. Yet Orwell shot it. The first bullet stunned the animal, the second made him waver, and Orwell had to empty the entire magazine into the elephant’s body in order to put an end to its mammoth suffering. “He was dying,” writes Orwell, “very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further…. It seeme...
11 comments
Read more

Urban Naxal

Fiction “We have to guard against the urban Naxals who are the biggest threat to the nation’s unity today,” the Prime Minister was saying on the TV. He was addressing an audience that stood a hundred metres away for security reasons. It was the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel which the Prime Minister had sanctified as National Unity Day. “In order to usurp the Sardar from the Congress,” Mathew said. The clarification was meant for Alice, his niece who had landed from London a couple of days back.    Mathew had retired a few months back as a lecturer in sociology from the University of Kerala. He was known for his radical leftist views. He would be what the PM calls an urban Naxal. Alice knew that. Her mother, Mathew’s sister, had told her all about her learned uncle’s “leftist perversions.” “Your uncle thinks that he is a Messiah of the masses,” Alice’s mother had warned her before she left for India on a short holiday. “Don’t let him infiltrate your brai...
14 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

Egregious

·       Donald Trump terminated all trade negotiations with Canada “based on their egregious behaviour.” ·       Pakistan has an egregious record of assassinations among its leaders. ·       Benjamin Netanyahu’s egregious disregard for civilian suffering has drawn widespread international condemnation. Now, look at the following sentences. ·       Archias is an egregious and most excellent man. [Cicero’s speech in 62 BCE] ·       “An egregious captain and most valiant soldier.” [Roger Ascham in 1545] U p to about 16 th century, the word egregious had a positive meaning: excellent or outstanding . Cicero was defending Greek poet Aulus Licinius Archias’s request for Roman citizenship. Archias had left his country out of disgust for the corruption of its Seleucid rulers. Ascham was speaking about the qualities of valiant soldiers when he used the ...
6 comments
Read more