What aliens might look like and why they may not necessarily be different from us

Not only science fiction writers try to imagine the appearance of the inhabitants of other worlds. Quite serious scientists - astrobiologists are also engaged in this. They study information about the planets on which life could exist, and make predictions based on the theory of evolution and the principles of biochemistry.

While it may seem that we are alone in the universe, this is most likely not the case. According to some reports, life in deep space could have originated about 13 billion years ago, long before the appearance of the Earth and the Sun. And if we assume that only one thousandth of the planets of our galaxy is suitable for the development of organisms, the number of such worlds will still be huge: about 200 thousand. Therefore, speculations about extraterrestrial life have a real foundation.

Aliens May Be Like Us

Today, scientists know exclusively carbon forms of life, for the existence of which the presence of water, energy and heat is necessary. Therefore, experts suggest that life can appear only on planets with conditions similar to those on Earth.

Since natural selection can hardly be considered a unique phenomenon for the Earth, extraterrestrial organisms, most likely, also encountered this process. This means that they retained only those features that are fundamentally important for survival. In this case, highly evolved aliens are unlikely to differ from humans, because evolution has similar goals and methods. The difference is most likely quite insignificant: for example, in the number of fingers, the shape and structure of the eyes. The useless antennae hardly grew, and the head did not become comically huge.

Terrestrial evolution also provides indirect examples of this. For example, sharks and dolphins are similar in structure, although they appeared at different times and belong to different species: fish and mammals. This is because their development had one goal - to swim fast. Accordingly, under similar conditions, evolution on different planets should be approximately the same.

Aliens can be fundamentally different

But what predictions can you come to if you break away from earthly experience a little and look at the problem more broadly? For example, suppose that other planets did not experience global changes similar to those on Earth. Let's say that individual cells have not learned to unite into multicellular complex life forms. If you accept this condition, it is easy to imagine very strange creatures, some parts of which perform specific functions. For example, they disconnect from the main organism in order to get food.

This is how British zoologists draw an image of such a creature - an octomite. Most of it lives below the surface, and only a small "crown" sticks out from the outside, receiving light and digesting it using photosynthesis. In special underground processes, the octomite gives birth to larvae, which on the surface turn into butterflies and pollinate the main organism.

We can go further and assume that life can appear in fundamentally different geological and chemical conditions. The carbon life forms we know of require water, which serves as a natural solvent for biological reactions. But this role, although less likely, can be ammonia, as well as methane, ethane or propane in liquid form.

There are also quite radical options. For example, the theory is that the bodies of aliens may be based on silicon rather than carbon. Or that creatures from other worlds do not have DNA, which is why hereditary information is transmitted somehow differently. Scientists also admit the possibility of the existence of life forms that breathe not oxygen, but nitrogen. How such creatures will look like, and whether they can even exist, is a mystery.

Nobody knows what aliens look like

Unfortunately, now scientists do not even know everything about life on Earth. For example, many organisms that live on the ocean floor have only recently become known. What can we say about extraterrestrial life forms. Our spacecraft still very rarely fly outside Earth's orbit, and aliens are in no hurry to show themselves. It’s not easy to look for their traces in the vast outer space.