How do you address extraterrestrials in outer space? The main problem with this is that there may not be any extraterrestrials out there to address. The next problem is that, if there are any, they will be unimaginably far away. According to Anders Sandberg of the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, the nearest star that could potentially accommodate life is ten light years from Earth, or (I hope I’ve got this right) about 60,000,000,000,000 miles.