Preface: When I was a kid watching Japanese science fiction TV series, the M78 Nebula is the location of the Kingdom of Light and the hometown of most Ultraman in the Kingdom of Light world. So believe that M78 Nebula was not real! At that time 70s, the internet technologies of today never been develop! The processor is 8087.
Background: The Orion Nebula, or Messier 42(NGC 1976), is a bright cloud of gas and dust in the Orion constellation, about 1,344 light-years from Earth. Orion Nebula is a diffuse nebula in the Milky Way situated south of Orion’s Belt in the constellation of Orion.
Messier 78 or M78, also known as NGC 2068, is a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included by Charles Messier in his catalog of comet-like objects that same year.
The distance between Messier 78 and Messier 42 is approximately 250 light-years. Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula, is about 1,344 light-years away. Messier 78 is approximately 1,600 light-years away.
SETI observations in M78: Till today, there are no confirmed signals from Messier 78 detected by SETI that are widely accepted as evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence. While the “Wow! signal” is a famous example of a strong, unexplained signal detected by a SETI project, it was not from Messier 78, and its origin remains a mystery. Subsequent searches in the same direction as the Wow! signal have not yielded any further detections.
Ref: SETI, which stands for Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, is a scientific area focused on searching for evidence of civilizations beyond Earth. It involves using telescopes and other instruments to detect potential signals from other star systems that might indicate intelligent life. The SETI Institute is a non-profit research organization dedicated to this quest.
Supplement: The Wow! signal was a strong, narrow-band radio signal detected by the Big Ear radio telescope during a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project on August 15, 1977. It was so named because of the exclamation “Wow!” written on the computer printout by astronomer Jerry Ehman when he discovered the anomaly. The signal appeared to come from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and exhibited characteristics that suggested an extraterrestrial origin, though its source remains unknown.
Question: If I assume that extraterrestrial life is real, why do they would it avoid contact with humans?
Official article: Please refer to the URL for details – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-78/