If we're looking out at the stars and hoping to find intelligent life that looks like us, then we might be thinking too small. So says Fergus Simpson of the University of Barcelona Institute of Cosmos Science, who published a paper on Arxiv with a few interesting conclusions about the possible hugeness of alien life.

Simpson stretches the definition of intelligent life beyond technological life into our cousins in the great ape branch. While their size all varies, humans are at the smaller end of the spectrum.

"Throughout the animal kingdom, species which are physically larger invariably possess a lower population density, possibly due to their enhanced energy demands," Simpson writes in the paper. "As a result, we should expect humans to be physically smaller than most other advanced species." In fact, based on Earth's fauna, Simpson puts the average alien weight at about 661 pounds, which is ... quite a lot bigger than us.

If that's true, it could change how we think about looking for alien life. Simpson argues that the larger the biosphere, the greater the chance that it can produce an intelligent species. Yet there may be a low population density of the intelligent creatures (not unlike the ape) due to their increased body mass—at least until technology reaches a point that it can artificially expand the lifespan. He points to this as a reason to look for biomarkers over radio signals when searching for life elsewhere in the cosmos. You might find intelligent life that isn't quite advanced enough—yet—to send those radio signals.

It may turn out that humans are the outliers and polar bear-sized creatures are the norm. "As we have repeatedly learned from the discoveries of distant planets, and the exploration of life on our own, nature is invariably more diverse than we anticipate, not less," he writes.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io