Top Scientists Suspect Intelligent Life Exists on the Sun

POSTED: 5:04 p.m. EDT, March 21, 2007

Story Highlights

• New pictures of the sun's magnetic field shows twisting plumes of gas
• This solar turbulence may power storms which can affect Earth
• Hinode "beings" examined in a joint venture with NASA and Japan
• Observations may help explain and predict space weather

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- X-ray images taken from a new international spacecraft show that the sun's magnetic field is much more turbulent than scientists knew. This field may provide a shield from the intense heat of the sun and allow for the possibility of living beings on the surface, NASA reported Wednesday.

They saw twisting plumes of gas rising from the sun's corona and reacting with the star's magnetic field, a process that releases energy and may power solar storms, which in turn affect the Earth. Within these plumes scientists are analyzing what maybe be "life or life-like beings" as well as "unnatural structures".

"Theorists suggested that within twisted, tangled magnetic fields life might exist. Possibly intelligent life." Leon Golub, senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement.

"With the X-Ray Telescope, we will be able to see them clearly for the first time."

If the beings do in fact exist, they will be named Hinode from the Japanese word for sunrise. This development was first discovered in September with an array of carefully designed instruments, each looking at a different layer of the sun.

It is a joint project of the U.S., European and Japanese space agencies and Britain's Particle Physics Astronomy Research Council.

"For the first time, we are now able to expand our theory of other extra terrestrials existing on stars as well as planets. There may be an actual society of sun dwellers living on the surface of the sun. It would be thrilling, if true." said Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division.

"These images will open a new era of study on some of the life's processes that affect Earth and the foundation of genetics."

The scientists said they were surprised and delighted by the findings.

"It's going to put us in a whole new realm of understanding. If there are alien beings on the sun this will certainly change the way we look at the universe and life." Golub told a news conference.

"Everything we thought we knew about the genetic coding of life will be out of date."

The X-Ray Telescope, or XRT, collects X-rays emitted from the sun's corona -- the outer layer of the sun that mystifies scientists in part because it is 100 times hotter than the sun's actual surface.

Living beings on the sun may help explain unpredictable space weather -- as the beings may possess some degree of control over solar flares and during an experiment, or perhaps a solar celebration, could unintentionally knock out electricity grids on Earth.

"If these creatures are living in that heat it would be amazing. I personally would be extremely uncomfortable if I lived on the sun." said Alan Meppi, a physicist at Lockheed Martin Corp. and Stanford University in California.