Boring Disclaimer Stuff
Living Planets and Overhearing Aliens is a quickly produced creative exercise and has no basis in reality. This post is purely fictional and designed for entertainment purposes. Nothing in this post is real, none of the names are real, this interview did not happen.
Introductions
Martina Curtzner from the Space News Press (SNP) interviewed Helmond Brukani from the Central European Astronomical Research Emporium (CEARE) on the 23rd of December. Mr. Brukani specialized in planetological linguistics, an emerging field of study based on the theory that planets are living beings that are capable of communication while they are in the “living” state.
The Interview: Living Planets and Overhearing Aliens
Introducing Dr. Brukani
Introductions
Martina: Good morning Doctor Brukani, thank you for joining us on this momentous occasion. Are you excited about the launch?
Dr. Brukani: Oh yes, this is a very exciting time indeed. We will finally have an observation craft placed far away enough from earth to hopefully be able to pick-up planetary reverberations of the viscous space-laden membrane that envelopes our solar system.
Our Planetary System’s Envelope
Martina: I’m sorry Dr. Brukani, did you say our solar system is in an envelope?
Dr. Brukani: Oh yes, this is very exciting and at the forefront of our research. It appears that our solar system has created a pool of low viscosity space. At the edge of our solar system is a slightly increased viscosity of space, and we think that just outside of that membrane is another low viscosity area. It is like the cells in your finger. Our solar system would be inside the cell, the viscous membrane would be like the lipid bilayer, and outside the membrane is whatever exists outside the skin cell.
Marina: That seems like it would change the entire way we think about or solar system and space in general. What are the implications?
Dr. Brukani: Well, it really doesn’t change very much. The viscosity is increased above that of the environment inside our solar system, we believe, but it is still extremely devoid of reasonable measurability. It is still space. The only effects we theorize that result from this viscous envelope may be some internal reflection of very slow moving waves and bounce-off effect for very highly energized particles outside our planetary system.
Noisy Earth
Martina: It sounds like the only effect is that high-pitched noises from the outside and low pitched noises on the inside of this envelope are blocked.
Dr. Brukani: That is an over simplification but the essential idea is correct.
Marina: Is that what this new deep space observational satellite is designed to detect, these sounds that are bouncing around?
Dr. Brukani: Yes, for more than half a century we, humans across the globe, have been receiving sounds that we believe are from other worlds, galaxies, unknown places in the universe but we believe a majority of the sound actually comes from right here?
Marina: You mean Earth?
Dr. Brukani: Exactly, Earth and possibly a couple of the other planets in our system. Neptune looks like a planet that may be in a living state.
Living Planets
Marina: Living state? As in alive? Do you believe the planets are living organisms?
Dr. Brukani: Not in the way we perceive or define life currently, but yes, planets do have a living state. They are very much like a cross between single-celled organisms and symbiotic hosts. Take Earth for example, it has tectonic plates that are very much like skin cells, multiple types of organisms that live and grow on those cell. A human has tear ducts, passages for breathing, hair, saliva, and other adaptations. Earth has plant life, animal life, glaciers and volcanos, and and an atmosphere. It even makes noises that follow certain patters and structure especially after a major natural event such as an earthquake or volcanic eruption.
Living Planets Can Speak
Marina: Noises that have structure and patterns. This sounds like you are describing speech. Do planets talk?
Dr. Brukani: We believe they do. I believe they do. I believe that all of the noise and interference created by human technology makes it very difficult to discern the noises that are made by earth. Earth’s speech is drowned out in human noise pollution. That is why it is so exciting that we will be able to take measurements and recording from so deep in space.
Martina: Ok, so you believe that planets are alive and that Earth can talk. Do you plan on talking back?
Dr. Brukani: Oh no, Earth talks but not in the conventional sense. Not as you and I talk. We cannot have a conversation with Earth very easily because the Earth talks very slowly. It can take a decade for the Earth to say something that would resemble a sentence. Our goal is to determine if Earth is speaking the way we believe and then to determine if this communication is being reflected of the planetary system’s envelope and is what we have been recording for the past 50 years. We want to see if we are recording ourselves.
Our Little Space
Martina: If all of the space noise we have recorded for the past 50 years is from Earth doesn’t that make space a lot smaller and make us far more alone that we ever believed we were before?
Dr. Brukani: No, I don’t think so. I think that we will identify clear reflections of Earth’s talking, but I also believe that we may pick up noises from other planets as well. Neptune and Uranus are great candidates for potentially live planets. We may even discover additional signals coming from other places in space.
Who Is Speaking other than Living Planets
Marina: Other signals? Do you mean talking from planets not in our solar system?
Dr. Brukani: That could be the source of some of the signals, but with our new space research vessel being placed so far from Earth we should be able to ignore earth based sound pollution and we may be able to overhear signals from other places.
Martina: It sounds a lot like you are talking about non-terrestrial sentient life. Are you talking about hearing aliens?
Dr. Brukani: I cannot say if aliens exist and if they did exist whether they would even be in our small corner of space. It seems the chances of that being a possibility are astronomical to use the exactly correct word. If by chance there happens to some form of space traveling life within forty billion miles of earth their communications should be strong enough to break through our solar system’s envelop and we should be able to pick up traces of those communications.
Overhearing Aliens
Martina: Let me repeat this back to ensure I understand. If aliens travel within forty billion miles of our solar system we should be able to hear their conversations with the newly launched space vessel?
Dr. Brukani: That is correct. That is not something we expect but we will be listening for structured signals that can be traced to origins outside of our planetary system.
Thank You For Your Time
Martina: It seems my producer is telling me we have run over our time but I want to deeply thank you for taking the time to let us know a bit about the mission of this new space research vessel that has been launched further into space than any previous vessel. From talking planets that are alive to wiretapping aliens space has, to borrow a word, astronomical possibilities.
Dr. Brukani: Thank you Martina, it was a pleasure.
Martina: After a short break we will be interviewing Dr. Lanceer Rutandow about her recently awarded Nobel prize and how it has provided an opportunity for her to teach a new generation of young scientists that hard work and creativity can lead to great discoveries.