Hudson Simon

15-01-2024

The Resilience of Life to Astrophysical Events

This paper discusses the possibility that astrophysical events cause the complete

extinction of life on Earth or another Earth-like planet. The conclusion is that a complete

sterilization of life is incredibly unlikely, with about a 1 in a billion chance every billion

years of existence. The most likely avenue for complete extermination of life is through

the evolution of the host star, eventually expanding and swallowing the planet or dying

and leaving no source of energy for life.

The search for extraterrestrial life in the universe is a uniquely human struggle (I

don’t see my cat pondering if there are Martian kitties that want to take over the world),

and this paper addresses one of the two main concerns with finding life. The first is the

likelihood that life develops on a planet with suitable conditions, which is currently

unknown and possibly unknowable. The second is the likelihood that, once life does

develop, it survives long enough to be observed by outside species-- shown here to be

a reasonable assumption.

Humans are a relatively fragile species, and would certainly be wiped out by

much less than that proposed in this paper. That being said, many extremophiles are

capable of withstanding truly absurd conditions-- and these are the very first types of life

that develop on any planet. Proving that these original organisms are able to survive for

so long provides hope that we may one day find evidence of extraterrestrial life.