What would intelligent aliens look like? How Extraterrestrials may evolve

What would aliens actually look like? Realistic extraterrestrials. Alien life is probably common in the universe. But by alien life, I mean life like bacteria other one-celled creatures. Complex intelligent life like mammals is probably exceptionally rare.

But whenever you see alien creatures in the movies, they look like humans humans. This would be nearly impossible. This is a reason to be highly suspect of any alien visitations.

The raw ingredients available to all planets are the most common elements in the universe:
Hydrogen, helium, oxygen, Neon, nitrogen, carbon, silicon. Our solar system is made of the same elements. But the key element to life is Carbon. Carbon is the backbone of every known biological molecule. Carbon can form 4 bonds with other atoms simultaneously. This makes it well suited for long chains of molecules that serve life, such as DNA.

Why can’t alien life be based on silicon? The complexity required for organic chemistry with silicon is not there.

All life uses Liquid water as a solvent, and Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) to store and release energy. Water is the most abundant compound in the universe. It's a good bet tthat intelligent alien creatures on other planets are also based on water.

There is a critical distance from a star where a planet is not so hot such as mercury, but also not too far like Jupiter where it is so cold that water freezes. Earth happens to be at this ideal zone. So let’s look at what intelligent life that evolves on an earth size planet in the habitable zone of sun-like star, based on carbon chemistry and water would be like.

There is one thing that is nearly certain: an alien life form will be symmetrical. Intelligent life would need to be able to build tools. This would require limbs or digits of some sort to hold and manipulate objects. They would require some way of recognizing their environment – sensory mechanisms - the analogs of eyes, ears, noses.

Eyes seem to have evolved a few times separately on earth, so something like eyes may be a universal trait. But alien "eyes" would have evolved for the peak electromagnetic spectrum of their own star.

it appears crucial for a species to cooperate and communicate in some kind of language. So they'd need to do this somehow, not necessarily by sound, like us with our mouths and ears. They could use other methods.

Do they live in a sea, In the clouds, or on land? There is no complex life that lives permanently in the atmosphere. And most intelligent species on earth happen to be on land, instead of the sea. According to physics professor Bernard Bates at the University of Puget Sound, Aliens with advanced technology would have to be on land because technology needs fire to kick-start it.

Regarding oceans, there is very little light beyond 200 meters in the ocean. So the energy that ocean creatures have to work with is less than the energy available on land. This makes it hard for larger complex creatures to evolve.

If aliens live on land, they would also need some means of locomotion – mammal legs and insect legs evolved separately, so aliens would likely have legs of some sort. Predators on earth mostly appear to have legs for fast running. So the legs would likely be segmented like ours for more efficient running. Whether it is two or 4 or more is hard to say. Natural selection on their planet would probably weed out inefficient body plans.

Dr Yael Kisel, scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center believes that most life in the universe as a whole is likely to be microbial. It is not clear whether intelligence is an evolutionary imperative. It is possible that the energy required to maintain a large brain is not evolutionarily advantageous vs. having larger teeth or higher speed.
#aliens
#extraterrestrials
#arvinash

But given the vast number of planets in the universe, it seems that even if our intelligence is an accident, we should still have company - intelligent neighbors somewhere, but they are likely to be so far away, that we may never encounter them.

[xenorac]

That was the quickest 18 minutes ever!

[Phrenotopia]

"Aliens on another world would evolve in a completely different TRAJECTORY."
Excellently phrased! Many people assume that as long as the environment is the same, then the outcome of evolution will more or less be the same. What is forgotten is that this is also a historical development contingent on millions of chance events.

[jeffreykatsman]

How specificly you have broke this down is amazing. I've been looking for something like this forever. Arvin, can you please make more like this? On what they would look like, what they would need to get here, more educated assumptions based on universal materials? This video can be hours longer and many like me would feel it's still not enough. You're the man, please keep pumping out this amazing stuff. You are a rare teacher. The world needs more.

[jancerny]

"Wait, what? You mean those things on the third rock evolved intelligence without living next to undersea volcanic vents?"

[finaltheorygames]

The funny thing is that with all the life in the universe that there is, odds are "little green men" the concept that we have created probably do exist in some fashion somewhere among the galaxies.

[luckysep]

This is literally everything thing I have thought about in the last couple of months. Thank you so much.

[RoanCritter]

"They may be little, they may be green, but they most certainly will not be men."
I like that line.

[Ken-fhjc]

The aliens in the film Arrival are the closest thing I’ve seen to actual aliens in a mainstream movie.

[seanivanhernandez]

I learned Something about Astronomy, Chemistry, and Biology in this 18:02 minutes video. 👌

[valmarsiglia]

09:19 - Reminds me of that old saying "A camel is a horse designed by a committee."

[alansmithee]

Physicists:
"We discovered life on another planet! This is brilliant!"

Taxonomists:
"Oh... Oh no..."

[sivakiruban]

That gesture at every start when saying "right now" never gets old..😎that's cool.

[GhostInPajamas]

some of my favorite depictions of aliens are from Arrival and Avatar. Avatar's aliens are simply beautiful, elegant, and exotic. Arrival's aliens on the other hand show you how unimaginably different alien life can really be. Not only are they like 30 feet tall, but they also look like nothing we have on Earth, even their skin looks like a material I've never seen. And they communicate with beautiful written symbols and a language that allows them to see through time. I really hope we encounter some type of alien in our lifetimes

[paxanimi]

Intelligent life may have appeared a few times in our galaxy, and we missed them all, due to time and space distances.
Another intelligent species who eventually evolve 500 millions years from now in the other side of the galaxy will certainly miss us completely.

[flalientb]

I absolutely love this video it takes the very likely existence of intelligent alien life and shows what they would more than likely look like and not what Hollywood and others drill into us. I'm not saying possible abductees are lying or that they couldn't actually look like us im just love the 100% scientific take on it.

[MaziarYousefi]

I watch all videos of Biblaridion. I have an MD, I honestly enjoyed all his videos about that fantasy planet & its aliens. It really makes sense.

[oneeyejack]

I'm so happy to see an accurate depiction of a DNA molecule !

[paulinadeluca]

Thank you Arvin Ash!!! I say the same thing. If life is so abundant on earth, and you have to literally search really hard just to NOT find living things on earth, I find it extremely hard to believe that there is nothing out there in space. And I think that if conditions are right, I'm convinced that life THRIVES.

[trustjesusoursavior]

All Life Intelligence Evolved from Nothing to Something.
A.L.I.E.N.S.

[Rofl]

I didn't know silicon based life was unlikely for the reasons you stated. Also, the take away is basically that alien life is likely to look a lot like like here on Earth, despite the first sentences of the video