"We haven't found life outside Earth yet, but we will."

BarcelonaThe vast Universe remains a great mystery to humanity. Is there life outside of Earth? What would aliens be like or how would we communicate with them? We have been asking ourselves these kinds of questions for over 2,000 years and the answer, thanks to researchers, seems to be getting closer every day. To explain the knowledge we have so far about aliens and shed some light on scientific research, CosmoCaixa is launching the exhibition Extraterrestrials. Is there life outside of Earth?, this Tuesday, February 25.

To begin to answer the big question of whether we are alone in the cosmos, Montserrat Villar Martín, doctor in physical sciences, astrophysicist and researcher at the Center for Astrobiology (CAB), explains that all the progress we make in our knowledge of the Universe "gives reasons to be optimistic." "We have not yet found life outside the Earth, but we will," she predicts. In fact, the study of planet Earth is what helps scientists search for life in the cosmos. For this reason, the interactive tour of the exhibition begins by explaining who we are within the Universe and how we have constructed the story that surrounds everything unknown.

What must a planet be like to be habitable? How can we measure our existence within the lifetime of the Universe? Through audiovisual modules, CosmoCaixa allows us to delve into these studies and learn, and also debunk myths, about our knowledge of what is out there. Culturally, it is also relevant to see how we see the others, the extraterrestrials. "It is a representation of ourselves," says Villar Martín: we are looking at ET, Mr. Spock and the Alien. There is also space for the history of thought and for conspiracy theories about UFOs. The exhibition seeks to put us to the test and to distinguish the wheat from the chaff: "UFOs are never thought to be of extraterrestrial origin," says the astrophysicist.

The importance of Mars

The holy grail in the study of exoplanets (planets that are not part of the Solar System) is to find a world with characteristics similar to Earth. Today, the existence of more than 7,000 exoplanets has been confirmed and, although their study is complicated by their remoteness, the exhibition allows us to discover which these celestial bodies are.

If the scientific milestone of finding a new Earth, and one that also hosts intelligent life, were ever achieved, researchers would also consider how we would communicate with these new beings. Projects such as SETI search for sounds in the middle of the cosmos, but we have also tried to communicate with aliens: the Voyager Program's golden records (a replica of those on display in the exhibition) contain sounds and images representative of life on Earth in case it is ever necessary to explain it to an extraterrestrial life form.

From the point of view of the search for life, Mars has emerged as having key importance in the scientific community. If we visit Extraterrestrials, available at CosmoCaixa until August 30, 2026, we will be able to observe a full-scale model of the rover Perseverance and the Ingenuity helicopter, NASA's vehicles that search for signs of life on Martian soil. And not only that, we will also be able to see up close the Martian meteorite discovered in 2010, the Ksar Ghilane 002.

The Ksar Ghilane 002 meteorite is a shergottite from Mars that was discovered in Kebil, Tunisia. The specimen was donated by José Vicente Casado, who discovered it with David Allepuz on January 13, 2010. On how one can be sure of its origin, Jordi Aloy, coordinator of the exhibition, explains that it is a basaltic body, which "comes from a place that has suffered volcanic activity and differentiation." The gas bubbles within the mass of the meteorite are analyzed as it was seen that it coincided with the atmospheric conditions of Mars, both in the area of gas proportions and on an isotopic scale.

Beyond Mars, CosmoCaixa also invites us to reflect on how we would take the existence of extraterrestrials, even if it were on a very distant planet. Although perhaps we will not be the ones to experience it, it presents us with an idea that could stop existing only in our heads and in fiction stories and become reality.