We may not be alone in the universe

I was always curious about the heavens when I was a kid growing up in Attawapiskat. My brother Joe often joined me to stare up at the night sky.
Joe and I learned from an early age what many of the constellations were, where they sat in the sky and the movement of the planets. As a matter of fact, his interest was so great that he named his first son after the constellation Orion.
Orion refers to a hunter in Greek mythology.
By the time we were teenagers, Joe and I could point up to the starry sky and pick out most of the constellations. We also had a good understanding of the planets in our solar system.
Inevitably as we continued over the years to view the night sky with great curiosity, it occurred to us of course that there could be life and perhaps intelligent life out there somewhere. There is an Ojibway and Cree legend that describes how people originally occupied a sky world. These first people were lowered into our current world through some kind of opening or vortex. Greek, Roman and even Christian legends and stories refer to spirits, angels, demons and beings and gods that came out of the sky.
I was fortunate recently to sit in on a lecture by Dr. Kevin R. Grazier, who has worked for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, conducted his doctoral research on planetary physics at UCLA and served as a science adviser for many movies and television productions.
In his presentation, I learned that a lot has been accomplished in tracking the possibility of life outside our planet. And scientists are using Earth as a model to begin their search. Researchers believe that since we have an abundant supply of water on our planet and plenty of life appears in it, then water may be necessary in propagating new life in other parts of the universe.
Water originates in the universe as a byproduct of star formation. Water travels through space as heavily condensed ice.
As these massive chunks of ice come close to solar systems and planets, they become comets. When our planet was being formed, countless numbers of comets slammed into Earth and delivered the water in our oceans over millions of years. Water occurs in many places in the universe because of this phenomenon but it is rare to see it as a liquid, which is critical for the development of life.
The whole concept of Martians and life on Mars recently has turned out to hold some potential. Although the planet appears to be bone dry and hostile in many ways, it may have had water once and currently has polar ice caps as well as evidence of underground water.
With this news from the good Dr. Grazier, I have a renewed interest in viewing the red planet through my telescope.
I also learned that there is a possibility of life on one of the moons of Jupiter known as Europa. The moon is covered in a thick layer of ice that may harbour an ocean. Scientists recently discovered that life does occur and flourish in the deepest part of our own oceans where there is no sunlight. It was originally believed that life requires sunlight in order to develop.
This new information about life without sunlight opens up the possibility of extraterrestrial life on planets and moons like Europa.
Now just imagine the infinite number of possibilities there are in our own galaxy and in the millions of other galaxies in our universe.www.underthenorthernsky.com