No, not that I know of. Sorry, not going to be able to answer this directly. But perhaps can add some interesting sidelights to it.
Actually - I think Europa is more likely than Mars. In case of Europa it is not impossible that there might be intelligent creatures living in its ocean.
First, it's an oxygen rich ocean, we believe oxygenated indirectly by ionizing radiation from Jupiter splitting water molecules in the surface ice.
With that energy source, there could be a multi-tier system of life there, with quite possible large creatures like rays, sharks, octopuses etc. And with billions of years development, they could have evolved to intelligence like ourselves.
If so - the only way that we could know about them, so far, is if they have technology like us. But what is the chance that creatures living in a water ocean, would develop technology like us? Hard to say - give them enough time - maybe they could use lava instead of wood for smelting etc to get started - but seems they would surely have a harder time than us.
So - then they wouldn't even know that our universe exists. To them, all that exists is the Europa ocean.
It would be a tremendous shock for them, if suddenly a strange probe melts its way through the ice into their home. So how would they react?
I think unlikely to be a technological threat to us in case of Europa. But we could be a technological threat to them of course as well as biological.
But they might be antagonistic and bewildered and confused and not able to make any sense of it at all. Even if they have scientists - and they might not - might e.g. just have some form of maths, even alien to us - or some kind of directed biology approach to life or whatever.
~But even if they do - they would have based all their science on study of their ocean. Chances are they haven't even thought about the idea of planets, gravity, etc. They would have worked out the geometry of their world. But that would be all there is - with numerous theories about what happens beyond the ice of their world above and below.
Some might be delighted to find out more. But others may have long established ideas about what is outside of their world overturned that would be upsetting to them.
I think the answer would be to just take things slowly, and not try to do everything at once. But - not come across any attempt at looking into legislation. I imagine the most important need of legislation would be to prevent us from interfering with them.
Now if an ancient and very clever race, might be that they just need a few hints to suddenly starting a new renaissance of technology - and maybe very rapidly go through stages that took us centuries, and quickly take over from us.
Imagine e.g. suppose that their maths is like a million years ahead of ours (it is either ahead or behind, highly unlikely to be at exactly same stage as us). Faced suddenly with ideas of technology they might leap frog over to new technologies we can't begin to imagine. So - that would be a major challenge for us in the future - hopefully a good and stimulating one.
But could also be a problem for us - as imagined in Asimov's
Victory Unintentional
It is highly unlikely that they would be a civilization only a few centuries old, if there is a civilization at all, just because coincidence would be so great. So either not there at all - or far ahead of us, or else - for some reason - not able to develop any further and though they have been there for millions of years - maybe they are just at intelligence levels say of chimpanzees or parrots, and never got beyond that.
Theoretically - they could also be ahead of us technologically, but "stay at homes" who found out about the rest of our universe millions or billions of years ago, and decided they wanted to stay put - maybe even deliberately low technology - or super advanced technology using ideas that we haven't encountered yet. In that situation they might know about us already. If not - they might be in for a bit of a shock when suddenly they get awakened from thousands of years of pre-occupation with their own internal affairs to discover a new species on their doorstep.
Lots of possibilities for sure. Personally - I think if there is intelligent life in the Europa seas - perhaps low technology but high civilization with some ideas millions of years ahead of us - is perhaps most likely. Just a guess - in the absence of any knowledge of any other intelligent species in our universe to date or life on any other planet except Earth :).
Actually - I think Europa is more likely than Mars. In case of Europa it is not impossible that there might be intelligent creatures living in its ocean.
First, it's an oxygen rich ocean, we believe oxygenated indirectly by ionizing radiation from Jupiter splitting water molecules in the surface ice.
With that energy source, there could be a multi-tier system of life there, with quite possible large creatures like rays, sharks, octopuses etc. And with billions of years development, they could have evolved to intelligence like ourselves.
If so - the only way that we could know about them, so far, is if they have technology like us. But what is the chance that creatures living in a water ocean, would develop technology like us? Hard to say - give them enough time - maybe they could use lava instead of wood for smelting etc to get started - but seems they would surely have a harder time than us.
So - then they wouldn't even know that our universe exists. To them, all that exists is the Europa ocean.
It would be a tremendous shock for them, if suddenly a strange probe melts its way through the ice into their home. So how would they react?
I think unlikely to be a technological threat to us in case of Europa. But we could be a technological threat to them of course as well as biological.
But they might be antagonistic and bewildered and confused and not able to make any sense of it at all. Even if they have scientists - and they might not - might e.g. just have some form of maths, even alien to us - or some kind of directed biology approach to life or whatever.
~But even if they do - they would have based all their science on study of their ocean. Chances are they haven't even thought about the idea of planets, gravity, etc. They would have worked out the geometry of their world. But that would be all there is - with numerous theories about what happens beyond the ice of their world above and below.
Some might be delighted to find out more. But others may have long established ideas about what is outside of their world overturned that would be upsetting to them.
I think the answer would be to just take things slowly, and not try to do everything at once. But - not come across any attempt at looking into legislation. I imagine the most important need of legislation would be to prevent us from interfering with them.
Now if an ancient and very clever race, might be that they just need a few hints to suddenly starting a new renaissance of technology - and maybe very rapidly go through stages that took us centuries, and quickly take over from us.
Imagine e.g. suppose that their maths is like a million years ahead of ours (it is either ahead or behind, highly unlikely to be at exactly same stage as us). Faced suddenly with ideas of technology they might leap frog over to new technologies we can't begin to imagine. So - that would be a major challenge for us in the future - hopefully a good and stimulating one.
But could also be a problem for us - as imagined in Asimov's
Victory Unintentional
It is highly unlikely that they would be a civilization only a few centuries old, if there is a civilization at all, just because coincidence would be so great. So either not there at all - or far ahead of us, or else - for some reason - not able to develop any further and though they have been there for millions of years - maybe they are just at intelligence levels say of chimpanzees or parrots, and never got beyond that.
Theoretically - they could also be ahead of us technologically, but "stay at homes" who found out about the rest of our universe millions or billions of years ago, and decided they wanted to stay put - maybe even deliberately low technology - or super advanced technology using ideas that we haven't encountered yet. In that situation they might know about us already. If not - they might be in for a bit of a shock when suddenly they get awakened from thousands of years of pre-occupation with their own internal affairs to discover a new species on their doorstep.
Lots of possibilities for sure. Personally - I think if there is intelligent life in the Europa seas - perhaps low technology but high civilization with some ideas millions of years ahead of us - is perhaps most likely. Just a guess - in the absence of any knowledge of any other intelligent species in our universe to date or life on any other planet except Earth :).
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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