Originally Posted by Antarctica!

Risu chuckled, shrugging. "Possibly? Maybe on some other world, an extraterrestrial being is grabbing every literary award on offer for imagining and writing about a race of two-legged ape descendants around a little yellow star." He shrugged again. "Why not."


"Of course," Risu said, nodding. "Even on our planet we have extremes of temperature that only very few things can survive. But even before we get to weather, a planet must have a stable atmosphere. A place like Mars, with only a very minimal atmosphere, doesn't have much else to offer other than dust storms."


Risu waved a hand at the arguing students. "Alright, alright, everyone calm down," he said, looking as severely as possible - not something he was used to. Frowny-face muscles weren't some he habitually employed. "Discussing different opinions is fine, but we're getting too far afield here. Maybe you should ask your Muggle Studies professor about this," he added.

"Erm..." His brow furrowed. "Sorry, Miss Griffiths, I lost my train of thought. Since I can't give you a definite answer either way, this lesson is merely intended to familiarise yourselves with a few of the concepts that have historically been among the most important in the discussion about possible alien life. As we've pointed out amply, they have their flaws and counterarguments, but we should be able to evaluate those arguments. I have something a little more hands-on planned for the next lesson, but we will need to know about this before we start anything else."

He shrugged. "Maybe we are alone. It's possible. I personally don't really think so, but I do think that the problems of size and distance aren't easily talked away. What I mean is, first, that even just our own galaxy, with its possible billions of planets with life on them, is so big that looking for specific inhabited planets might well be a never-ending task. And second, even if it were possible to pinpoint such planets, the distances between them and us are so unimaginably huge that even communication via radio signals - which travel at the speed of light, obviously - requires a lot of, er, patience. Astronomers could send one message and then would have to wait for the next generation to receive an answer.

"But," he said, leaning against the desk, "we should probably wrap up here in a little while. Before we do, though, are there any questions, or anything that needs to be clarified. Or, really," he added, "anything that you just want to discuss further."

Originally Posted by Lissy Longbottom