DW-TV: "Joining us in the studio is the astronomer Dr. Michael Geffert. What do you think? Is there really life out there?"

Michael Geffert: "Yes, personally I believe there is life somewhere in the universe, but the contact is very difficult because the distances in the universe are so large." +++

DW-TV: "Getting in contact would mean that life is intelligent."

Michael Geffert: "Yes, I think that, of course, there is some other life, but I think also there is some intelligent life somewhere in some galaxy. But the distance is so far that the signals would take so long to come here to Earth and our answer would also take a lot of time."

DW-TV: "That would not really be a dialogue?"

Michael Geffert: "No, that wouldn't be dialogue, that would just be one signal. There are some people in astronomy who only listen with their radio telescopes to get messages from aliens."

DW-TV: "Life here on Earth is based on oxygen and on water. Do you think there could be a completely different form of life?"

Michael Geffert:"It is difficult to imagine. I think life -- how it developed here on Earth -- is a good system, a good development. It's difficult to think about other ways."

DW-TV: "If you really detected intelligent life out there -- let's call them aliens -- what would happen to the people down here, what would happen to our self-concept, to our world view?"

Michael Geffert:"I think our world view would be different. Because at the moment we think, we have the feeling we are the only intelligent people or animals. And this would be different, for example, for religion. It would be interesting: What would be a god for the aliens? And what is the situation of God there and here? Is it a different God?"

DW-TV: "So it is essentially a sort of humiliation, like Darwin or Copernicus gave to the world?"

Michael Geffert:"No, I think it's not a humiliation, because I think every person is a miracle. And if you are in contact with such persons, you will feel that. You have to imagine that other persons are very valuable. So if you detect aliens somewhere, that would not change anything."

DW-TV: "You actually do research in the field of astrometrics, meaning you measure how stars move. How big is the challenge for people like Michel Mayor, actually trying to find single planets by other stars?

Michael Geffert: "He needed a very sophisticated technique. And the basis of all these measurements is that you have a star in the middle and a planet which is moving around it. But the star is moving a little bit and you have to detect this small motion of the star. You can detect it either by astrometry, which was tried by Peter van de Kamp some years ago, but he was not successful. Michel Mayor used radio velocities and for some years he's been very successful. And he was the first one, together with Didier Queloz, to find some planet [the extrasolar planet 51 Pegasi b]. But he did not see this planet.

DW-TV: "Will we have a chance, one day, to find out more about these planets?"

Michael Geffert: "Yes, I think so. We need techniques, astronomy techniques which go outside of the Earth. We have to go in space and then we can find them."

DW-TV: "Thanks a lot for the talk, Dr. Geffert."