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Space is host to the most inhospitable environments imaginable. Nonetheless, there are subtle properties of the universe that allow the delicate process of life to exist. Indeed, it appears as if the cosmos has been “fine tuned” to permit life. Had the Big Bang happened more quickly, the early condensations of matter that led to galaxies, stars, planets and us would never have taken place. Had it happened more slowly, the universe would have quickly collapsed and disappeared. If the physical constants that govern the pace at which stars age and die were slightly different, life would not have had the time to evolve to produce you, me, or Stephen Hawking. The entire universe has been constructed with one blueprint. Physics is the same throughout. So if biology has appeared here, around an unremarkable star in the outskirts of a run-of-the-mill galaxy, won’t it have appeared manifold times elsewhere? After all, there are more stars visible to our telescopes than all the sand grains of Earth’s beaches. Shouldn’t we expect that life is a natural, frequent occurrence?
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