We are currently searching for life on other planets by trying to first identify planets in the Goldilocks Zone
, a region of space in a given solar system not so close to central star as to be too hot, but not so far from it as to be too cold.
Assume for a moment that there is advanced intelligent life out there, and such beings have visited Earth in the past and found primitive man. After working out a pidgin in which to communicate, early man asks the visitors something along the lines of why are you here?
or how did you find us?
.
The visitors, having used a similar strategy to what we are doing now draw a simple diagram of our solar system - the linear kind we use with young children. They point to the third circle from the sun and say that we are here. They then point out that all the lands to one side are far too hot (like fire), and the lands to the other are far too cold (like ice).
Thus the northern European cosmology is born. The lands of fire (Muspelheim) to one side, and the lands of ice (Niflheim) to the other, and in the middle is the Goldilocks Zone
(Ginnungagap) the only region where life supporting land can exist.
This cosmology could have come about in many different ways, such as observation and reason. I only use extraterrestrial life in this example as a creative way to show the correlation between ancient cosmology and modern observation of our immediate universe.
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