Alien Planets Novel

Aliens exist.

The above statement is now widely agreed upon by scientists in many different disciplines. The question of 'Do aliens exist?' has been affirmatively answered due to recent scientific discoveries. For example:

- Between 1992 and 1 September 2011, 574 extrasolar planets have been detected (Planets that are outside of our own solar system). We can now reliably predict that many stars are orbited by planets.
- Several of these planets (that have rather unmemorable names like Gliese 581 c, Gliese 581 g, Gliese 581 d and OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb) are within what's considered a 'habitable zone', a zone which is the right distance from the sun for planets to have liquid water.
- The discovery of many different extremophiles - creatures that exist in extreme environmental conditions, such as the edge of volcanoes, or around hydro-thermal vents deep under the ocean. This suggests that aliens could exist on a far wider number of planets than previously thought, widening the 'habitable zone' around stars, which could support alien life.
- The Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter and is estimated to contain 200 to 400 billion stars. There are an estimated 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the universe (we can't see most of it, so it's hard to know for sure), but that's a LOT of stars! Probability therefore suggests that however small the percentage is of planets that can support life, alien planets will exist.
- The Universe is around 13.7 billion years old and most stars are between 1 billion and 10 billion years old. Earth is 4.5 billion years old (and life started around 4 billion years ago), therefore we're on a relatively young planet, orbiting a relatively young star and there are billions of planets that have had plenty more time to evolve!
- It's terribly egocentric to think we're alone in the universe. All previous concepts of humans being uniquely special have been disproven (the Earth is the centre of the Universe, no wait, it's the sun, oh, erm, actually, no we're in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy ...)

Given that we're not alone in the universe, other questions become paramount:

- What are aliens like?
- What are their societies and cultures like?
- Are they warmongering or peaceful?
- What would they think of humans? What would we think of them?

Alien Planets is a fictional novel by Martin Woods that explores these questions and more. While it's a fictional novel, it is based on the latest scientific research about alien planets.