What were the UFOs looking for in Ramat Aviv?

It is not clear, but Prof. Zvi Maza and Prof. Ilya Leibovitz from Tel Aviv University take the opportunity to explain why ecologists have nothing new to offer

What were the UFOs that were recently observed in the skies of Ramat Aviv looking for? The assumption that the aliens asked to be the guests of honor at the study evening "Life in the Universe" that was supposed to take place last night in the Bar Shira Auditorium at Tel Aviv University, is not acceptable to the astronomers who organized the gathering. Meanwhile. It is not impossible that there is life in the universe, the astronomers repeat and say. But for now there are no findings that indicate life outside our planet and spacecraft launched from it. To live in a way similar to the one accepted by us, says Prof. Zvi Maza, head of the Department of Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, requires a certain temperature, about that which allows liquid water. Something around 0 to 100 degrees Celsius. The temperature in outer space is -270 degrees, close to absolute zero (-278), while on the surface of the stars the temperature reaches an average of about 6,000 degrees heat. For life to be possible, conditions similar to those prevailing on Earth are required.

Until a decade ago, the question of the existence of planets - planets - outside the solar system, was a mystery. Only nine years ago, following a technological breakthrough, indirect observation of other planets became possible. It turned out that there are, and even a lot.
Astronomers believe that in our galaxy alone, for the Milky Way, there are at least five billion planets. Therefore, the chance of having a life in other places significantly exceeds the chance of winning the lottery. Maza was part of the team that in 1989 first discovered the existence of other planets. It is not possible to watch them directly, he explains. "Such a direct observation is likened to observing Paris, through binoculars, from the balcony of a tall tower in Tel Aviv. And even if we managed to climb to the necessary height and overcome the curvature of the earth, if a huge spotlight were placed above the Eiffel Tower, we would in no way be able to notice the light of a tiny firefly floating around it." The discovery of the other planets was made possible by measuring the small fluctuations of the star, caused by the gravity of the planet rotating around it.
Until this year, this discovery was considered the only one of its kind. This year, seven more planetary systems were discovered. Are we getting closer to discovering extraterrestrial life? The measurement options currently available to researchers allow us to distinguish only planets of the order of magnitude of the big planet
The largest planet in our solar system - Jupiter - is 1,500 times larger in volume than the Earth, and 300 times larger in mass. And Jupiter is a very bad place for life - the temperatures there range from 25,000 in the core, to 130 in the mantle. But to the astonishment of the researchers, another system was discovered last year, through radio-telescopic observation. Around a pulsar - a dead sun - three planets close to the dimensions of the Earth were observed. What is sensational about this discovery is the size of these planets and the relationships between them, which bear a surprising resemblance to our inner solar system - a kind of replica of the (Mercury)-Venus-Earth triad.
Does that mean at least we'll have somewhere to run?
"It's not clear," replies Prof. Maza. "But there is still time. Obviously, the existence of our sun has an upper limit, with its nuclear fuel capacity, but that will only happen in 4.5 billion years." The biggest dangers are asteroids that could collide with our fragile planet. According to the accepted assumption, the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago due to an asteroid hitting Israel, and because of the dust clouds that covered the surface of the sky for a long period of time as a result. The theory holds that such a massive collision is expected once every 26 million years. Such a collision accelerates and perhaps even improves the processes of evolution, but it could exterminate the entire human race and leave only the sophisticated ants, the spiders and other small, agile and adaptable animals. We are currently in a good place in the middle of the cycle, although the possibility of the existence of a stray asteroid, which is not well versed in the theory, must be taken into account.
Could life here become extinct before other life is discovered? It's not the stray asteroid that worries Maza, an optimistic man: "Science and technology are developing at such a pace today that more and more people have the possibility of destroying the world. A hundred years ago there was no man who could destroy the world. Today there is such a possibility for the president of the United States, for the president of Russia, maybe also for one Chinese and one British. And as technology advances, more and more people join the circle of horror. It's only a matter of time before this horrifying option lands in the hands of one crazy person who will do it. There is no solution to this."
Unlike Galileo, the astronomer's eye no longer observes the telescope, but only the computer output, numerical data in which physical and chemical items, color and intensity are quantified. There is no stopping a blind man from being a great astronomer. "The telescope is only a device for collecting light," says Prof. Elia Leibovitz, director of Tel Aviv University's Mitzpe Ramon Observatory. "When you are in the observatory, you only check if the devices are working properly."
And soon it won't be either. Large telescopes placed at Pro levels are operated from small rooms in Europe. Thousands of amateur astronomers around the world excitedly follow the stars with an armed eye every night. Leibovitz tells about Seki, a Japanese amateur astronomer, who every night puts his children to bed at eight, wraps himself in a coat and goes up to the roof to watch the telescope. This ski, it turns out, knows the dome of the sky like the back of its hand. He is able to immediately recognize a star that was not seen there before, and on his name are recorded the revelations of five novae - astronomical explosions that accompany the birth of a new star.
These explosions are very impressive. A star never seen before, shining overnight 100 thousand times and more. Sometimes they burst with the energy of an entire galaxy in an instant. But their lifespan is like that of a butterfly - sometimes one night is enough. The dome of the sky, which seems so fixed to us, is a world of permutations and alternatives, and an experienced enthusiast can sometimes notice the change of stars even with less sophisticated devices.
This observation of the night sky is an inexhaustible source of miraculous phenomena. "There is humor in the sky", Leibovitz accepts the wording - "stars sway like drunks, stars swell and shrink, and everything like that, which is intriguing as a phenomenon, holds within it a very thorough knowledge of the laws of nature."
Leibovitz singles out his talk at the conference for UFOs - whether they get there or not. The phenomenon is fascinating and dangerous, he says, and he doesn't mean it
For UFOs but for UFOlogists, the aliens of astronomy. First, he explains, there is no big difference between those who believe only in the existence of UFOs and those who also believe in the existence of aliens. These and those cannot predict when and where another encounter with the phenomenon is expected, and they have no useful theory. "There are UFO events, without a doubt, and such events will continue to occur. There are light phenomena in the atmosphere that are incomprehensible to us. But there are things that are even less understood: sneezing, for example. or what causes healthy cells to become cancer cells. It is no more complex than the mystery of why a certain cloud rains while other clouds pass you by and there is a drought. But here we are talking about the night and the sky, and people take care of this phenomenon."
The explanation of UFOs as flying saucers, as aliens or as their messengers, is not an explanation in the logical sense. In the Middle Ages they said that fire is hot because it has femininity, and feminine objects are hot objects. This is not an explanation, and as long as they thought so there was no scientific progress. The same with the aliens: who are the aliens? Those who send UFOs to Israel. There is no other evidence or explanation for their existence, and it is impossible to explain any phenomenon based on such a circular argument. It contradicts everything a reasonable person thinks and sees as an explanation.
And if he did encounter an alien, equipped with sophisticated translation software, what would be the first question he would ask him? Leibovitz admits that he would not have been able to ask anything, paralyzed with astonishment. It's not the aliens that bother him today, but the question of the future of science, if so many people are taken for nonsense.