Download “Life Beyond Earth” Video Questions

“Life Beyond Earth” Video Questions
Part 1 - “Are We Alone?”
1. All life on Earth is __________ .
2. How many orbits have the sun/Earth made around the galaxy? If we compare the orbits the
sun/Earth have made around the galaxy to a clock, what fraction of an hour have humans been on
Earth?
3. What does physicist Paul Horowitz say about our sun and Earth? What does he say about how fast
life arose on Earth? What does he conclude then about the likelihood of life on other worlds?
4. What three key elements are necessary for life as we know it?
5. Where do heavy elements, such as iron, calcium, silver, and gold, come from?
6. If all of Earth’s history is a highway (1 km = 1 billion years), how long ago does the highway begin?
What would we see 3.75 billion years ago? What would we see half a billion years ago? What evolved
200 million years ago? What evolved 4 million years ago? What began half a meter ago?
7. What did these famous explorers do: Magellan? Cook? Darwin?
8. What does biologist Stephen J. Gould believe is NOT true about evolution and human’s place in it?
9. The DNA code on Earth uses _____ letters but could use as few as _____ .
10. The DNA in a sunflower could hold as much information as _______________ books.
11. According to HG Wells, although Europeans viewed the exploration of Tasmania as a
“discovery”, how might the Tasmanians have viewed it?
12. What was the title of the HG Wells story broadcast by Orsen Wells? What was it about?
13. What two “sister worlds” of Earth may have once been in the habitable zone of our solar system?
How was each of those worlds imagined? What did probes find?
14. What does Antarctica teach us about looking for life on other worlds?
15. What do some scientists believe they have found in a Martian meteorite?
16. List some different habitats in which life can live.
17. What were the conditions on the early Earth like?
18. How do the number of E.choli bacteria in your gut compare to the number of people that have
ever lived on Earth?
19. List some other planets/moons in our solar system that might have/had some form of life.
20. What does it mean to terraform a planet? How might Mars be terraformed?
Part 2 - “Is Anybody Listening?”
1. If our sun is a grain of sand, how far away is the Earth? How big is the orbital size of our solar
system?
2. What would be the problem of physically traveling to other worlds with today’s technology?
3. The Voyager I/II probes launched in the year __________ each carry a ____________________ to
communicate with other species. Traveling 50 times faster than a jet fighter, they should reach the next
star in ____________________ years.
4. What invention developed in China and Italy has made space travel a reality?
5. What did the narrator’s v-shaped UFO sighting turn out to be?
6. What were the UFOs seen over the Western US in 1972 and New York in 1992?
7. What structure was almost built in Siberia to communicate with aliens?
8. What type of electromagnetic wave is now used to listen to the heavens and search for aliens?
9. What was built for the first time in Wheaton, IL in 1931? What was it used to map?
10. The 100,000 light year diametered infosphere surrounding the Earth has leaked our TV and radio
signals to how many stars: __________. At Alpha Centauri, they are receiving earth transmissions that
are _____ years old, while Capella is receiving transmissions _____ years old. On Beta Pictorus, they
could be listening to __________ music, while the oldest Earth transmissions have reached the star
__________ in the Big Dipper.
11. What does SETI stand for? What is its purpose?
12. How many stars are there? How many galaxies?
13. What was Fermi’s question about aliens?
14. Explain the statement, “The absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.”.
15. Using a Hawaiian telescope, what are astronomers searching for? What force will give their
sought after object away (Hint: How could we detect an invisible poodle being walked by it owner?)?
16. Someday, we may be able to take a picture of other worlds. Where would we put the camera?
17. How was Galileo’s vision of the Universe different from the ancient Greeks?
18. What was theory was proposed by each of the following great scientists: Kepler? Newton? Einstein?
Hubble?
19. What is true of the physical and biological laws throughout the galaxy/Universe?
20. What has happened to the size of human brains over the last 2 million years? What new ability
has this given us?
21. Out of a million plus known species there are only __________ species of mammal, including less
than __________ species of primate, and only one type of human today.
22. To see signs of intelligence at work, we must look at whole __________ not parts.
23. According to Gott’s formula, humans should last at least __________ years but less than
__________ million years which is __________ to most other species.
24. Compared to the age of the Universe, humans are very __________ .
25. Besides space and distance, the biggest obstacle to our finding other intelligent life in the
galaxy/Universe is __________ .