American theoretical physicist Michio Kaku recently addressed the possibility of our planet communicating with aliens, and stressed that the issue should be examined with great caution as the Earth could be at risk. “The aliens may be friendly, but we can’t risk it,” he said.
Michio Kaku is well known in the scientific community and beyond, due to his many books and appearances on television shows.
Kaku commented on possible communication with aliens, speaking about the development of the James Webb, a massive space telescope that will be the successor to Hubble and is set to launch in October 2021.
See also: NASA's Hubble Telescope detects rare pair of double quasars
At a cost of $8.8 billion, the telescope will be able to reach deep into space. According to the data, the James Webb will be able to discover a huge number of galaxies that were previously invisible to scientists.
Comparing Hubble's capabilities to those of James Webb, Nasa says that Hubble is capable of detecting "toddler galaxies", while the new telescope will be able to detect "baby galaxies".
See also: NASA: Explains what the...rainbow captured on Mars is!
The construction of the Webb telescope will allow scientists “to see thousands of planets, and that’s why I think the chances of us making contact with an alien civilization are quite high,” Kaku said in a recent interview with The Guardian.
“There are some colleagues of mine who think we should contact them. I think it's a bad idea. We all know what happened to Montezuma when he met Cortés in Mexico hundreds of years ago. Now, personally, I think the aliens out there are friendly, but we can't risk it. So I think we should contact them, but we have to do it very carefully“.
See also: China arrives on Mars to search for traces of alien life
To explain the potential danger, Kaku cited the story of the 16th-century Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, who invaded the city of Aztec ruler Montezuma Xocoyotzin.
Kaku believes that even if there are friendly attitudes, the manner of communication is very important, because there is a possibility that attempts at rapprochement can be misinterpreted.
Other scientists have expressed the same view in the past. Stephen Hawking, for example, believed that aliens exist but that contact with them would be disastrous for Earth. He himself said that humanity would suffer the same fate as the natives after the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.
The prospect of Earth aliens has been discussed many times, and different opinions have been heard. By evaluating the responses and comments on related news stories, some scientists have found that most people view the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life positively, even if it meant that the extraterrestrial beings would head for Earth.
However, opposing research has shown that a simple message from aliens could disrupt life on Earth even if it was not threatening.
Source: The Independent
