• Question: If aliens do or did exist, what genes would (or did) they have?

    Asked by TheXtraSuperPoweredTomBoy to Barbara, Matt, Ravinder, Sophie, Tristan on 13 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Sophie Robinson

      Sophie Robinson answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      Due to the great size of the universe, it is statistically certain that other life forms do exist somewhere out there. They probably have some sort of ‘genes’ or units of inheritance but they may not be DNA as we know it. Their genes may be made of completely different molecules. All that is required is that these molecules can contain some sort of code that can be passed on to offspring.

      This is an area where the imagination can run wild!

    • Photo: Barbara Shih

      Barbara Shih answered on 14 Mar 2015:

      If they do/did exist, they could have a completely different way of passing on their equivalent material or different ways of getting/storing energy.

      Assuming that they have gone through a similar evolution path as us (so going from single cellular to multi-cellular). They would probably need genes that allow communication between cells, possibly genes that allow them to break down energy/absorb energy/create energy from some kind of energy source (such as the sun or exisitng minerals), genes allowing them to move, and genes that allow them to have some form the communication.

    • Photo: Matthew Moore

      Matthew Moore answered on 15 Mar 2015:

      It’s an interesting question and depends on lots of things! First of all there are scientists who study a field called astrobiology who are interested in just these questions and attempt to work out how life might be on other planets!

      No aliens have ever been discovered ever! This in itself is amazing, we have sent robots to Mars and there doesn’t appear to be any evidence of even microbial life!

      All living organisms would have to have some material, like we have DNA, that can be used to pass on information, that can be inherited by the next generation. What these genes would look like would be unclear, perhaps they would be made of DNA, perhaps not!

      What we do know is that they would be subject to the same Darwinian evolution! If aliens do exist, whether they’re just microbes or whether they’re green men with big heads they would definitely have evolved by Darwinian natural selection –which is simply the process of increased likelihood of traits that convey an advantage to survival and/or chance of mating, making it to the next generation.

      What’s interesting is that life appears to have only occurred once on this planet, you make expect it to have occurred a number of times in a number of different ways (perhaps without DNA). Instead, it’s occurred once as far as we know and all living organisms today have stemmed from those early organisms 3.5Bn years ago. If it had happened a few times it would seem more likely to have happened on other planets too!

      So whether or not there are living organisms on other planets, they would certainly have genes (perhaps not made of DNA) and would certainly evolve by Darwinian selection.

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