THE UNIVERSALITY OF COSMIC LIFE...or...GUESS WHO'S COMING (or going) TO DINNER?

Captain Cook is about to visit. Columbus or the Vikings, or Saint Brendan. or maybe the Ancient Israelites are coming. Better get this place cleaned up. We stand on the precipice (in the new world, spelling don't count....remember that....What do you want to be, a writer , or a secretary?) Our outriggers  (probes) are already skimming passed distant islands (planets/moons). We now speak of the twelve hundred known worlds. By the time you read this, there'll probably be a few more. Research tells us life can exist in a wide variety of habitats. Some seem equitable, others downright hostile. But who are we to judge what's comfy and what isn't, when we can't even decide how to set the air conditioner?

They tell us life needs water. Well, (besides us) the Moon has frozen lakes deep down in the shadowy bottoms of mysterious craters. And Mars quite likely harbors permafrost little different from what they have in Siberia. But if you want to hit the mother lode, you have to stop by Europa, a planet-like moon of Jupiter. Observations indicate the presence of a vast, orb-coating sub-glaciation, salty sea. Think of the polar oceans pulsing beneath  our (sadly ever shrinking) ice caps. Do we have creatures adapted to those environments? Of course we do---- whales----krill----sharks----penguins-----puffins-----walrus-----jellyfish------polar bears------seals----- char-----spider crabs------plus a lot of other squiggly things soon to appear at a Red Lobster's near you. And if our cosmic raft could accomplish such wonders in it's four and a half billion years of existence, why couldn't equally old galactic bastions do the same?

So share your thoughts. COMMENT and COMMENT often. What do you think is out there? How close do you suppose 'they' are? And when will we discover them? They say our arm of The Milky Way alone has millions of habitable freckles. Think about it. chitinous, hard shelled beasties survive in Earth's deserts. Graceful manta rays glide through our seas. And venerable, old bacteria colonies bubble away far beneath the rocky surface. Why is this world different from all other world? Oh, come on. It probably isn't. Well, maybe in degree, but not in kind.

So prepare yourself to review the Grand Cosmic Menagerie. The circus train's a comin...and God only knows what's on it.