ONE of Britain's most prominent cosmologists has reignited the debate over the presence of alien life in our galaxy - by claiming the human race is alone.
Professor Brian Cox has argued that as there is no evidence of alien intelligent life ever having existed at any stage in the history of the galaxy, the natural conclusion is that no such race has ever existed.
He believes any civilisation would have explored the galaxy by now, leaving behind traces of their existence in the process.
Prof Cox said: "(The absence of alien artefacts) suggests that there is only one advanced technological civilisation in this galaxy and there has only ever been one, and that is us.
"If we are the only intelligent civilisation in the galaxy, that makes us indescribably precious and valuable. We are the only island of meaning in an infinite sea of stars, and that confers a responsibility to survive and explore the stars."
The Milky Way contains up to 400 billion stars. But there are thought to be around 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article