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“Mirrors to our own history, in particular colonial exploitations, aliens are often portrayed as evil invaders bent on coming here to wreak havoc,” writes Professor Marcelo Gleiser in his latest post for NPR’s 13.7 Cosmos & Culture blog. “How realistic are these scenarios, given what we know now about astronomy and the possibility of life in other worlds?” he asks.

The answer, says Gleiser, the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and a professor of physics and astronomy, has several parts: “The first concerns the existence of other worlds with habitable conditions—that is, that can harbor life as we know it.”

Read the full opinion piece, published 2/11/15 by NPR.