Infinity, cats, toast, and chickens…

Sometimes, late at night, I find myself pondering the imponderables.

How big is infinity, which came first the chicken or the egg, is that cat alive or dead inside his or her box, what persuaded the chicken (not the egg) to cross the road, just why does toast always seem to land butter side down, and of course: is there life anywhere else in the universe?

Yes, I don’t sweat the small stuff. I’m strictly a blue sky, helicopter view, million dollar question sort of chap.

Sometimes I worry that we might be alone, really alone, the first world to sustain life, perhaps the only world that will ever sustain life. What if we really are a one-off? Some massive long-shot that wasn’t in the plan, would that mean that there wasn’t a plan, and would that mean that without a plan there was no God? If there was a God.

It makes my head spin, not literally in an Exorcist sort of way, but that spinning, flashing thought thing where your mind races from one thing to another and you begin to see lights in your head, bright, bright lights and deep pulsating whirlpools of darkness, a kaleidoscopic internal picture show taking you to infinity and beyond…

Or is that just me?

Anyway, I wish I had the answer to the extraterrestrial life question. It would make it all so much easier to bear knowing that we are not alone, that we are probably not just an instrument of some all-powerful being, a game that Somebody or Something enjoys playing.

Will David’s lyrical question ever be answered, and will we ever resolve the life on Mars thing? Not to mention the moons of Jupiter.

Okay I’ll mention them. At least three of the four moons of Jupiter - Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede - could be likely candidates for life. Of course the Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) is on its way, the first large-class mission chosen as part of the European Space Agency’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. I don’t know much about the ESA’s Cosmic Vision or JUICE, but I do know that it won’t be launched until 2022 from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Now, despite the mission seemingly being named to solely produce a catchy acronym, I’m hoping that they find something. Jupiter and its moons are almost a mini solar system in their own right. Three of those moons have water and seas under their surface ice; one even has its own magnetic field, another internal heat. Maybe under that ice, deep in the water, there really is life - strange extraterrestrial fish slowly swimming in the murky waters.  

It’ll be a long wait. But if they do find life, any life, that one big question will be answered. Extraterrestrial life within our own solar system has to mean that life can occur almost anywhere, and that will mean that we aren’t alone and maybe there really are other intelligent beings somewhere else.

Best of all, when that day comes and the fish are found, only the cat, infinity, chickens, and the toast mystery will be left for me to ponder.