Extraterrestrial Life Research Articles

Astrovirology: how viruses enhance our understanding of life in the Universe.

Viruses are the most numerically abundant biological entities on Earth. As ubiquitous replicators of molecular information and agents of community change, viruses have potent effects on the life on Earth, and may play a critical role in human spaceflight, for life-detection missions to other planetary bodies and planetary protection. However, major knowledge gaps constrain our understanding of the Earth's virosphere: (1) the role viruses play in biogeochemical cycles, (2) the origin(s) of viruses and (3) the involvement of viruses in the evolution, distribution and persistence of life. As viruses are the only replicators that span all known types of nucleic acids, an expanded experimental and theoretical toolbox built for Earth's viruses will be pivotal for detecting and understanding life on Earth and beyond. Only by filling in these knowledge and technical gaps we will obtain an inclusive assessment of how to distinguish and detect life on other planetary surfaces. Meanwhile, space exploration requires life-support systems for the needs of humans, plants and their microbial inhabitants. Viral effects on microbes and plants are essential for Earth's biosphere and human health, but virus-host interactions in spaceflight are poorly understood. Viral relationships with their hosts respond to environmental changes in complex ways which are difficult to predict by extrapolating from Earth-based proxies. These relationships should be studied in space to fully understand how spaceflight will modulate viral impacts on human health and life-support systems, including microbiomes. In this review, we address key questions that must be examined to incorporate viruses into Earth system models, life-support systems and life detection. Tackling these questions will benefit our efforts to develop planetary protection protocols and further our understanding of viruses in astrobiology.

New books & media

My Quantum ExperimentSection:ChooseTop of pageMy Quantum Experiment <<The Matter of Everything:...Are Electromagnetic Field...The Climate Book: The Fac...Ghost Particle: In Search...My Quantum Experiment, John Horgan, 2023. Self-published; freely available onlineMany of us had pandemic projects. Some got into baking sourdough; some started knitting. The science journalist John Horgan decided to learn quantum mechanics, and in My Quantum Experiment, he documents his quest to understand the famously strange theory. Despite making a name for himself as a prominent skeptic of so-called theories of everything, the iconoclastic Horgan had little formal training in any scientific field. He first began with self-study, using books like Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman’s Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum (2014) as his guide, and eventually enrolled in an undergraduate course on the topic, where he found several helpful study buddies. But the book is more than just a quantum diary: Interspersed with reflections on the theory’s weirdness are Horgan’s trademark ruminations on politics, love, and the meaning of life. —rdThe Matter of Everything: How Curiosity, Physics and Improbable Experiments Changed the WorldSection:ChooseTop of pageMy Quantum ExperimentThe Matter of Everything:... <<Are Electromagnetic Field...The Climate Book: The Fac...Ghost Particle: In Search...The Matter of Everything: How Curiosity, Physics and Improbable Experiments Changed the World, Suzie Sheehy, Knopf, 2023, $30.00Computers, smartphones, TVs, MRI scanners, the Web—these are just a few of the technological achievements made possible by particle-physics research. In The Matter of Everything, the accelerator physicist Suzie Sheehy focuses on 12 of the most important physics experiments that have proven essential to our understanding of the world—from the detection of x rays in 1895 to the initial startup of the Large Hadron Collider in 2008. More than just a history of 20th-century physics, Sheehy’s book highlights the scientists involved and their extraordinary ingenuity and collaborations. —ccAre Electromagnetic Fields Making Me Ill? How Electricity and Magnetism Affect Our HealthSection:ChooseTop of pageMy Quantum ExperimentThe Matter of Everything:...Are Electromagnetic Field... <<The Climate Book: The Fac...Ghost Particle: In Search...Are Electromagnetic Fields Making Me Ill? How Electricity and Magnetism Affect Our Health, Bradley J. Roth, Springer, 2022, $29.99 (paper)Aimed at a popular audience, this book—as the title indicates—examines the ways in which such devices as MRI scanners, high-voltage power lines, airport security scanners, pacemakers, and 5G cell phones affect the human body. Bradley Roth, an expert in medical physics, also examines the mysterious Havana syndrome, which was first reported by staff at the US and Canadian embassies in Havana, Cuba. Symptoms include fatigue, dizziness, and ringing in the ears. Some experts argue that microwave weapons are the cause of the illness. Although Roth is skeptical of that claim, he convincingly argues that if such weapons do exist, they should be easily detectable. —rdThe Climate Book: The Facts and the SolutionsSection:ChooseTop of pageMy Quantum ExperimentThe Matter of Everything:...Are Electromagnetic Field...The Climate Book: The Fac... <<Ghost Particle: In Search...The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions, Greta Thunberg, ed., Penguin Press, 2023, $30.00An anthology of over 100 short essays on climate change and related issues, The Climate Book is the creation of the environmental advocate Greta Thunberg, who invited renowned scientists, science writers, and activists from around the world to share their expertise. Focusing on such topics as melting ice shelves, species extinctions, deforestation, and agricultural practices, the writers discuss the damage humans have done to the planet, what the repercussions are and continue to be for the climate, and what we can and should be doing about it. Graphs, charts, and photos illustrate the impactful text. —ccGhost Particle: In Search of the Elusive and Mysterious NeutrinoSection:ChooseTop of pageMy Quantum ExperimentThe Matter of Everything:...Are Electromagnetic Field...The Climate Book: The Fac...Ghost Particle: In Search... <<Ghost Particle: In Search of the Elusive and Mysterious Neutrino, Alan Chodos and James Riordon, MIT Press, 2023, $32.95Despite being the second most abundant particle after photons, neutrinos have nevertheless proved to be difficult to study because they rarely interact with matter. Yet because of that property, they may offer unique insights into how the universe evolved. In Ghost Particle, the physicist Alan Chodos and the science journalist James Riordon relate the fascinating history of neutrino research, which involves atomic bombs, the Cold War, and a retired gold mine. They explore neutrinos’ importance to understanding astrophysics and cosmology as well as the potential applications of neutrino physics, such as monitoring nuclear reactors, probing Earth’s geology, and even searching for alien life. —cc© 2023 American Institute of Physics.

Shīʿī Imāmī Thought on Existence, Life, and Extraterrestrials

ABSTRACT In this article, we develop the intersection of Shīʿī Islamic philosophy and extraterrestrial life. We explain the view of Ḥukamā (Islamic Philosophers) and what implications it holds for asserting a plurality of worlds and life forms. In addition to this, we bring Shīʿī hadīth sources which also suggest the existence of other life forms outside the earth. Combining the philosophical and textual evidence, we argue that the Shīʿī school not only suggests the existence of extraterrestrial life but also provides a potential framework for possible human-extraterrestrial interactions.

The inferred abundance of interstellar objects of technological origin

Interstellar objects discovered crossing through the solar system can either be natural objects or technological artifacts from extraterrestrial civilizations. Evidence from our own civilization suggests that early-stage technological civilizations are already able to launch artificial objects beyond their star system, and early-state to late-stage technological civilizations in the Milky Way may have an interest in exploring potentially habitable regions throughout the galaxy. Based on our rate of detection for both natural and artificial populations of interstellar objects, we can estimate their respective local number densities and the total quantity of such objects bound by the Milky Way thin disk. We propose a model for calculating the quantity of such objects based on their observed velocity and number density. We consider the relevance of our model given several detections of interstellar objects over the past decade, and we discuss the implications of the estimated quantity of both natural and artificial objects for understanding their nature and origin.

A biotic habitable zone: impacts of adaptation in biotic temperature regulation

ABSTRACTThe search for biosignatures necessitates developing our understanding of life under different conditions. If life can influence the climate evolution of its planet then understanding the behaviour of life-climate feedbacks under extreme conditions is key to determine the ‘edges’ of the habitable zone. Additionally understanding the behaviour of a temperature limited biosphere will help towards formulating biosignature predictions for alien life living under conditions very different to those on Earth. Towards this aim, we extend the ‘ExoGaia Model’ – an abstract model of microbial life living on a highly simplified zero-dimensional planet. Via their metabolisms, microbes influence the atmospheric composition and therefore the temperature of the planet and emergent feedback loops allow microbes to regulate their climate and maintain long-term habitability. Here, we adapt the ExoGaia model to include temperature adaptation of the microbes by allowing different species to have different temperature ‘preferences’. We find that rather than adapting towards the planet’s abiotic conditions the biosphere tends to more strongly influence the climate of its planet, suggesting that the surface temperature of an inhabited planet might be significantly different from that predicted using abiotic models. We find that the success rate for microbial establishment on planets is improved when adaptation is allowed. However, planetary abiotic context is important for determining whether overall survival prospects for life will be improved or degraded. These results indicate the necessity to develop an understanding of life living under different limiting regimes to form predictions for the boundaries of the habitable zone.

Intelligent intensive care unit makes medicine more accessible

In the past half century, critical care medicine has made rapid development, and the survival rate of critically ill patients has significantly improved. However, what does not match the rapid development of the specialty is that the infrastructure of intensive care unit (ICU) has gradually appeared weaknesses and the development of humanistic care in ICU has lagged. Accelerating the digital transformation of the medical industry will help to improve the existing difficulties. The application of 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to build an intelligent ICU,focusing on improving patients' comfort by strengthening humanistic care,while solve the shortcomings of the critical care dimension, such as lack of human and material resources, low alarm accuracy, insufficient response speed and ability, to better meet the needs of society and improve the level of medical services and humanistic care for critical diseases. We will review the development of ICU history, clarify the necessity of intelligent ICU construction and the core issues to be solved after the construction of intelligent ICU. Three components of the construction of intelligent ICU will be needed: intelligent space and environment management, intelligent equipment and goods management, intelligent monitoring and diagnosis and treatment. Finally, the people-oriented diagnosis and treatment concept will be realized through intelligent ICU.

Bio-techno-signature Monitoring and Communication Guideposts for Extraterrestrial Life

Attendees at the First Penn State SETI Symposium collaborated to develop guideposts for monitoring for and communicating with extraterrestrial life. Over the course of six hours of moderated, dialogic, art-based inquiry in 2022 June, four foundational questions catalyzed the creation of a set of ethics-informed guideposts: Who speaks for Earth, and who should speak for Earth?; What can be communicated, and what is communicated?; What should be communicated?; and How can it be communicated? The 10 resulting parameters offer ethical navigation for examining bio- and techno-markers.

WiWalk: Gait-Based Dual-User Identification Using WiFi Device

The rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) boosts the spread of intelligent spaces. Biometrics-based user identification has gained great popularity recently, among which gait analysis offers a stable, user-friendly, and economical solution. Thanks to the advancement in wireless sensing technologies, capturing gait characteristics using WiFi signals has become a promising new paradigm. The identification process is contactless, insensitive to lighting conditions, and can reuse the incumbent WiFi infrastructure. In this article, we present a gait-based dual-user identification framework named WiWalk to tackle the difficulty where users walk closely together with mixed effects on WiFi signals. The core of WiWalk is to train a deep neural network that can separate and recover individual signals from the mixed ones. Since the separation process inevitably causes information loss, we carefully design a series of algorithms for interference elimination, segmentation, and feature extraction, to enhance the identification accuracy. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate WiWalk at different locations and times with users of different ages, genders, clothing, and walking behaviors. WiWalk can reach an accuracy of 94.44%, which is suitable for smart homes or offices with a small user base.

Distinguishing Biotic vs. Abiotic Origins of 'Bio'signatures: Clues from Messy Prebiotic Chemistry for Detection of Life in the Universe.

It is not a stretch to say that the search for extraterrestrial life is possibly the biggest of the cosmic endeavors that humankind has embarked upon. With the continued discovery of several Earth-like exoplanets, the hope of detecting potential biosignatures is multiplying amongst researchers in the astrobiology community. However, to be able to discern these signatures as being truly of biological origin, we also need to consider their probable abiotic origin. The field of prebiotic chemistry, which is aimed at understanding enzyme-free chemical syntheses of biologically relevant molecules, could particularly aid in this regard. Specifically, certain peculiar characteristics of prebiotically pertinent messy chemical reactions, including diverse and racemic product yields and lower synthesis efficiencies, can be utilized in analyzing whether a perceived 'signature of life' could possibly have chemical origins. The knowledge gathered from understanding the transition from chemistry to biology during the origin of life could be used for creating a library of abiotically synthesized biologically relevant organic molecules. This can then be employed in designing, standardizing, and testing mission-specific instruments/analysis systems, while also enabling the effective targeting of exoplanets with potentially 'ongoing' molecular evolutionary processes for robust detection of life in future explorative endeavors.

The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: Nearby Stars’ Close Encounters with the Brightest Earth Transmissions

After having left the heliosphere, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 continue to travel through interstellar space. The Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons spacecraft are also on paths to pass the heliopause. These spacecraft have communicated with the Deep Station Network (DSN) radio antennas in order to download scientific data and telemetry data. Outward transmissions from DSN travel to the spacecraft and beyond into interstellar space. These transmissions have encountered and will encounter other stars, introducing the possibility that intelligent life in other solar systems will encounter our terrestrial transmissions. We use the beamwidth of the transmissions between DSN and interstellar spacecraft to perform a search around the past and future positions of each spacecraft obtained from the JPL Horizons System. By performing this search over the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars, a catalog of precisely mapped stars within 100 pc, we determine which stars the transmissions of these spacecraft will encounter. We highlight stars that are in the background of DSN transmissions and calculate the dates of these encounters to determine the time and place for potential intelligent extraterrestrial life to encounter terrestrial transmissions.

The orbit schemes to monitor Martian dust storms: Benefits to China&amp;rsquo;s future Mars missions

<p indent="0mm">Mars is most often the focus of planetary explorations because it promises to have signs of extraterrestrial life. China’s first Mars mission, called Tianwen-1, was launched on 22 May 2021 and was successful in “orbiting, landing and roving” the planet and exploring its environment. Following this success, China planned to carry out another Mars mission, known as Tianwen-3, to collect and return samples. However, dust storms posed a significant threat. Such activity on Mars has an evident pattern of seasonal variation, frequently occurring during spring and summer in the southern hemisphere. Under certain conditions, this dust activity can develop into a global storm, lasting several months, and can strongly perturb the upper atmosphere, which is crucial for the aerocapture of probes. Even regional storms can modify local visibility, temperature, wind, and the density of the lower and middle atmosphere, which impact parachutes, navigational imaging, and other decent-entry-landing and take-off probe processes. Indeed, the tiniest grains of dust pose a threat to human soft tissues and are harmful to the surface probes’ mechanisms and filters. Solar panels, cameras, etc., are also adversely impacted by dust deposition, which peaks during the fallout of a global dust storm. Thus, forecasting dust storms is invaluable for reducing or avoiding damage to these probes. However, the physical complexity of dust storms on Mars is not fully understood, making accurate forecasts of dust storms, and particularly their onset, challenging. To aid future Mars missions such as the Tianwen-3, we propose that China establish a network to monitor Martian dust storms and atmospheric weather that is based on observations of Mars from a spacecraft constellation. This constellation consists of three spacecraft in an equatorial synchronous orbit with an altitude of about <sc>17000 km</sc> and one spacecraft in a large-elliptic polar orbit whose perigee altitude is about <sc>150 km.</sc> The constellation with “four-point integration” can form a monitoring and alert network that provides simultaneous, continuous, and global-scale observations of the Martian atmosphere and surface. As an innovative platform for space-based science, this network has many advantages for Mars exploration, because it can monitor Martian dust storms and geomorphic changes on the surface, as well as the space environment and atmospheric weather. It is also beneficial for spacecraft relaying communication from probes on the Martian surface, allowing continuous data to be uplinked. Finally, the constellation is an ideal platform for on-orbit computing, delivering computer resources to surface assets, and global navigation of Mars.

Navigating the Convergence of Artificial Intelligence and Space Law: Challenges and Opportunities

The space industry is one of the most technologically advanced industries that aims for scientific explorations that benefit humanity on multiple fronts. Further, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies comprise game-changing tools that could be utilized to facilitate space exploration aims. The emergence of AI in the space industry would evolve how both industries look. Since many challenges in the current space industry could be addressed by implementing artificial intelligence, space objects will create "Intelligent Space Objects". Different studies were conducted to explore the implementation of AI technologies in space activities and their legal implications. The scope of this paper goes beyond the existing work. It will investigate the main AI applications in space and then explore their legal challenges, including issues related to regulations, liability, and policy questions. Accordingly, it will discuss the need for developing a novel legal framework to address these challenges, creating a strategic opportunity for international collaboration between states and organizations that will contribute to advancing space law. This study will review, evaluate, and analyze the current situation and recommend ways to establish a novel international space organization. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2023-04-01-04 Full Text: PDF

Extrasolar Planet Candidates Identified by Single Transit from TESS

The discovery of planets around stars other than Sun was a grand milestone to understand origin and evolution of life in Universe. 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to the first discovery of exoplanet around Sun-like stars, Peg 51b, in 1995. With development of 25 years, the current number of confirmed exoplanets have reached 4,000. The population of exoplanets presents great diversity and complexity beyond the planets in Solar system, severely challenging our understanding on the origin and evolution of planets. Moreover, clues of extrasolar life have been partially disclosed by detection of exoplanets in habitable zone with temporal surface temperature. In recent years, several promising surveys of exoplanets have been carried out to search for more exoplanets, compiling more complete sample of exoplanets and detecting Earth-like exoplanets. Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) launched in 2018, is the most import facility for this purpose. It monitors the brightness of nearby stars in all sky with high cadences, searching for exoplanetary transit events. The survey is sensitive to detect terrestrial exoplanets. In this work, we reanalyzed the high quality light curves of TESS with algorithm developed by ourselves and visual examination. Our work was designed complementary to the automatic pipeline developed by TESS science team. TESS pipeline is not optimal for long-period exoplanets, for which only one transit event occurring in the observation sectors of 27.4 days, appearing as single transit single. Those long-period planets are more likely to be habitable with liquid water on their surface in relative large orbits. We took efforts to recover exoplanets with single transit in TESS. First, we identified candidates with significant narrow dimming in light curves uniformly by our automatic program. The singles were further examined visually and fitted by transit profile, selecting transit events. More precise modeling was carried out by MCMC analysis for transit exoplanet candidates. As a preliminary attempt, we only processed the light curves in sector 1 only. Full TESS dataset in all 26 sectors will be studied in future. In summary, we detected 25 exoplanet candidates in publicly accessible light curves in TESS sector 1. Among them, 14 candidates are known exoplanets, and 6 are candidates identified by TESS pipeline in catalog of Tess Objects of Interest (TOI). 5 exoplanet candidates with single transit signal are newly identified by their profiles, and the properties of these system were inferred in this work. The orbital parameters and physical properties derived by us are consistent with those in literature for all the 14 known exoplanets. 2 among 6 of exoplanet candidates in TOI catalog are single transit objects, our results are consistent with values reported in TOI catalog. For the new exoplanet candidates, we report their inferred orbits and physical sizes. We plan to implement our analysis for all light curves in 26 sectors of TESS, Over 100 exoplanet candidates are expected to be recovered, significantly contributing to the current population of 4,000 known exoplanets.

Multibeam Blind Search of Targeted SETI Observations toward 33 Exoplanet Systems with FAST

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is to search for technosignatures associated with extraterrestrial life, such as engineered radio signals. In this paper, we apply the multibeam coincidence matching (MBCM) strategy, and propose a new search mode based on the MBCM which we call the MBCM blind search mode. In our recent targeted SETI research, 33 exoplanet systems are observed by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). With this blind search mode, we search for narrowband drifting signals across 1.05–1.45 GHz in two orthogonal linear polarization directions separately. There are two special signals, one of which can only be detected by the blind search mode while the other can be found by both blind and targeted search modes. This result reveals huge advantages of the new blind search mode. However, we eliminate the possibility of the special signals being ETI signals based on much evidence, such as the polarization, drift, frequency, and beam coverage characteristics. Our observations achieve an unprecedented sensitivity and our work provides a deeper understanding to the polarization analysis of extraterrestrial signals.

Designing a Novel Monitoring Approach for the Effects of Space Travel on Astronauts’ Health

Space exploration and extraterrestrial civilization have fascinated humankind since the earliest days of human history. It was only in the last century that humankind finally began taking significant steps towards these goals by sending astronauts into space, landing on the moon, and building the International Space Station. However, space voyage is very challenging and dangerous, and astronauts are under constant space radiation and microgravity. It has been shown that astronauts are at a high risk of developing a broad range of diseases/disorders. Thus, it is critical to develop a rapid and effective assay to monitor astronauts' health in space. In this study, gene expression and correlation patterns were analyzed for 10 astronauts (8 male and 2 female) using the publicly available microarray dataset E-GEOD-74708. We identified 218 differentially expressed genes between In-flight and Pre-flight and noticed that space travel decreased genome regulation and gene correlations across the entire genome, as well as individual signaling pathways. Furthermore, we systematically developed a shortlist of 32 genes that could be used to monitor astronauts' health during space travel. Further studies, including microgravity experiments, are warranted to optimize and validate the proposed assay.

Avoiding the “Great Filter”: Extraterrestrial Life and Humanity’s Future in the Universe

Our Universe is a vast, tantalizing enigma - a mystery that has aroused humankind’s innate curiosity for ages. Begging answers to questions on alien lifeforms have been thus far unfruitful, even with bounding technological advancements of recent years. Coupled with logical assumptions and calculations such as those made by Dr. Frank Drake starting in the early 1960s, evidence of life should arguably exist in abundance in our galaxy alone, yet in practice we’ve produced no clear affirmation beyond our own planet. So, where is everybody? The silence of the Universe beyond Earth reveals a pattern of both human limitation and steadfast curiosity. Even as ambitious programs such as SETI take aim at the technological challenges involved, the results have thus far turned up empty for any signs of life. We postulate an existential disaster may lay in wait as civilizations advance exponentially towards space exploration, acting as the Great Filter: a phenomenon that wipes out civilizations before they can encounter each other, explaining the cosmic silence. We propose several possible scenarios for the Great Filter, including anthropogenic and natural hazards, both of which can be prevented with reforms in individual, institutional and intrinsic behaviors. Multiple calamity candidates are considered: nuclear warfare, pathogens and pandemics, artificial intelligence, meteor impacts, and climate change. The Great Filter has the potential to eradicate life on Earth, especially as our rate of progress correlates directly to the severity of our fall. A necessary period of introspection, followed by appropriate refinements to more effectively approach our predicament, is required to mitigate risk to humankind and the nearly 9 million other species on Earth.

Biosignature line ratios of [P ii] in exoplanetary and nebular environments

ABSTRACT Being the backbone element of deoxyribonucleic acid, phosphorus is a key component in the search for life in the Universe. To aid in its detection, we present line emissivity ratios for the five lowest-lying forbidden [P ii] transitions, namely those among the levels 3s23p2(3P0, 3P1, 3P2, 1D2, and 1S0). The wavelengths range between 0.44 and 70 µm, and several lie within the spectroscopic domain observable with the JWST. These line ratios have been calculated using a new collisional-radiative-cascade (CRR) model combining calculated collision strengths and level-specific recombination rate coefficients, with both data sets computed using the accurate Breit–Pauli R-matrix method. The CRR model includes a new scheme for (e + ion) recombination to emission-line formation. We compare its effect to models incorporating only electron-impact excitation and spontaneous radiative decay. We find that (e + ion) recombination has a significant impact on all line ratios, and represents a major improvement in physical accuracy of emission-line models.

Overview of the Galileo Project

The Galileo Project is the first systematic scientific research program in the search for potential astro-archaeological artifacts or remnants of extraterrestrial technological civilizations (ETCs) or potentially active equipment near Earth. Taking a path not taken, it conceivably may pick some low-hanging fruit, and without asserting probabilities — make discoveries of ETC-related objects, which would have far-reaching implications for science and our worldview.

Extraterrestrial Soteriology

One scientific objection to religion is that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would show that our religions are not veridical, with Christianity being the most common target. I will first look at a parallel issue, the ancient and medieval controversy over antipodes. This raises two problematic Christian doctrines that would apply equally to extraterrestrials: the transmission of original sin and the cosmic fall. These issues raise questions about their spiritual status, but I conclude that not having such answers does not amount to an objection to Christianity’s credibility.

The monstrosity of the search for extraterrestrial life: Preparing for a future discovery

Inspired by past efforts to delineate potential future reactions to a discovery of extraterrestrial life, this work draws on the humanities literature of monster studies and monster theory to conceptualize the overall activity of the search for extraterrestrial life as a monstrous endeavor. This work highlights four interlinked aspects that appear to signify its potentially monstrous character: its hybridity as a field of inquiry, its conduct under conditions of severe uncertainty, its employment of abduction and anticipation, and its aim of producing knowledge about novel and ontologically liminal phenomena. An operationalization of the monster as a heuristic is being employed to explore ex ante the potential public reactions to a monstrous future discovery of extraterrestrial life and to suggest a coping strategy to handle those reactions. The suggested strategy is monster assimilation, which aims at adapting both the monster and the cultural categories against which it is evaluated. Recognizing the importance of explicating cultural assumptions to enable this adaptation of cultural categories, this work proposes that enhancing “futures literacy” in the science, policy, and society nexus across diverse cultures might eventually prove critical in enabling the easier assimilation of a monstrous future discovery of extraterrestrial life at an earlier stage.