ARE WE TRULY ALONE ?

The 'New Horizons' space craft has finally passed its latest target, the tiny rock that has been named 'Ultima Thule'. This rendezvous, which was only conceived in 2014 as 'Ultima Thule' was previously unknown, took place some 4 billion miles from Earth, after a journey that has so far lasted 13 years. Initial data was sent back to Earth over the ensuing hours but it will be many months before the full reports and pictures are received.

While this represents a tremendous achievement for the scientists and engineers who have been involved in the project, it also demonstrates how puny are the human efforts to explore the heavens. Having landed men on our nearest planetary body, the moon, some 50 years ago, we have yet to send a human being any further. While we have sent space craft out to visit all of the planets in our solar system and 2 have even passed beyond the boundary of that system, we have yet to scratch the service of interstellar space. Indeed, while light takes a mere few hours to traverse the distance between 'Ultima Thule' and our home planet, 'New Horizons' has taken 13 years to get there.

There is a vast gulf between aspiration and achievement. Science fiction writers make up stories about humans travelling the universe, and yet the reality is that we have yet to send a human further than our own moon, a mere 250,000 miles away. Ultima Thule is 4,000,000,000 miles distant and the nearest star some 25,000,000,000,000 miles away; the chances of finding life, or much else, there aren't exactly good.

Are we alone in the Universe ? Is it really possible that in a Universe of thousands of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, our sun is the only star which has a planet that supports life ? Is humanity the only developed, intelligent (I use the term loosely) species in this entire Universe ? It seems highly unlikely and yet the absence of any known contact from any other intelligence raises questions. Is it simply impossible to travel the vast distances between the stars quickly enough to make communication possible ?

The truth is that without some massive leap forward in our propulsion technology, the chances of humanity ever travelling to the stars are vanishingly small and the same problem may well prevent other civilisations from doing the same. Whether or not we are truly alone and unique may not matter; we may simply be too far away for it to be relevant.