And speaking of Halloween frights, there's a theory in science that's gaining traction of late. Maybe you won't find this interesting but we did. First consider that even with life sustaining conditions assumed to be incredibly rare, cosmically speaking, the fact that almost every observed star has planets leads to the estimate of 100 billion planets in our galaxy. That number renders the long odds of perfect life generating conditions moot—there are certainly millions of planets with life, probably many thousands with intelligent life, and virtually any scientist you talk to outside of a political environment will tell you that. So why haven't we detected anything? The age of the civilization is a factor, distance is a second factor, point of origin of signal emission is another, and the perfect timing for us intercept a signal is yet another.

But here's the theory: a civilization advancing to the point that it can emit signals into space is a function of technological development, which in turn hinges on energy. Whatever form an alien race takes, it must advance through stages of energy generation. And since nuclear physics are a constant throughout this universe, every advancing civilization will eventually discover nuclear power. It's the most obvious energy form of all, because every sun in every sky shines as an example of it. It's possible that very few civilizations survive advancing through the various stages of dirty and dangerous energy generation. Nearly all collapse their ecosystems, which in turn leads to extinction. Just some food for thought this lovely Thursday as you look at these photos of a Russian nuclear test at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, conducted today in 1951. 

The explosion and mushroom cloud you see here were generated by the Soviet nuclear blast Chagan, which took place at the Semipalatinsk Test Site today in 1965. You notice we didn’t describe this as a “test” like we have with the other explosions we’ve posted. That’s because it wasn’t. The explosion was designed to create an artificial lake. It worked, but the lake is of course still radioactive today. You have to laugh. Where could the Soviets have gotten such a crazy idea? Well, they got it from the Americans, who three years earlier had investigated the use of nuclear explosions for earth moving purposes with their Sedan test. What were the results? That experiment dumped more radioactive fallout on U.S. residents than any other nuclear test ever conducted. Below, two shots of lovely Lake Chagan. 

Photo of Soviet nuclear test RDS-37, a multi-stage hydrogen bomb similar to Joe 4, airdropped at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, Kazakhstan, U.S.S.R., today 1955.