How many believe that a form of life could exist elsewhere in the universe?

[Deleted member 149562]

Y'all, Tatooine exists.

Of course it does...its in Tunisia

Visit the Star Wars Filming Locations in Tunisia

Discover how to visit the Star Wars filming locations in Tunisia and explore the sets for the desert planet Tatooine, the fictional home of Luke Skywalker.

www.visatunisia.com

Some of it is mocked up (Nafta & Tozeur desert) and other parts are actually real, it was home to a civilisation (Ksour)

All open to the public and fascinating to visit (been there a couple times)

 

[itiwhetu]

My five cents worth. Why send the probes away from the sun? If there is another planet with a life form on it that we will be able to communicate with it will be on the opposite side of the sun, the same distance we are from the sun. Like our sister planet. That is where we should be looking. Ther is no point looking into deep space

 

[itiwhetu]

Eh no... As deep as that sounds its not true. Electricity is energy and there are thunderstorms recorded on planets but that is not counted as life.

I do like your thought on it though!

Without energy there is no life therefore energy is life.

 

[jaylach]

We live on a planet within a solar system that is within a galaxy (The Milky Way) that is within our universe. Our galaxy is not even large compared to the average of what we have found yet contains an estimated 100-400 billion stars. For example our galaxy is ~100,000 light years in diameter. The Andromeda galaxy, our closest neighbor, is ~220,000 light years in diameter.

The exact numbers are just impossible to know due to the speed of light. The light of a star across from us in our galaxy could take close to 100,000 years to reach us. Shoot, it takes ~8 minutes for the light from our own sun to reach us and ~4 years for the light from the closest star to us to reach us. This means that some no longer exist and we don't know as the light increase from them going nova has not yet reached us. Also there are stars that have formed whose light has yet to reach us. Now consider that, in 20020, it was estimated that there were 2 trillion galaxies in our "observable universe"; We have yet to develop the ability to see the entire universe.

Now let's take the mid point of how many stars there are in our galaxy and call it 250 billion stars and we'll be generous and call our galaxy average. Now take that 250 billion stars times the estimate of 2 trillion galaxies in the part of the universe that we can see and the fact that we have discovered planets orbiting some stars in our own galaxy. This would indicate that there are likely many billions of stars that have planets just in our galaxy.

That all boils down to a whole bunch of planets out there! Our radio broadcasts have only reach a handful of stars so there has not been anywhere near enough of a sample to even come close to saying there is no life elsewhere. Now consider the thought that there is intelligent life on a planet orbiting a star our radio broadcasts have reached. There is no logical reason to assume that they even use or would detect our radio signals. Even if our broadcasts were detected it is most probably that they would not recognize our broadcast as an intelligent act as our forms of intelligence would most probably be totall alien to each other due to differences in evolution.

Now consider our deepest probe, Voyager 2 launched in 1977 is still within our solar system and will never leave before totally non functional.

Like Jodie Foster said in the movie Contact... "If there is no life out there it's an awful waste of space.".. That's a paraphrase as I can't, for fact, remember the exact quote.

 

[AmyKieran]

Well there’s a question

What’s scarier?

That there’s life out there, or that there isn’t?

 

[itiwhetu]

We live on a planet within a solar system that is within a galaxy (The Milky Way) that is within our universe. Our galaxy is not even large compared to the average of what we have found yet contains an estimated 100-400 billion stars. For example our galaxy is ~100,000 light years in diameter. The Andromeda galaxy, our closest neighbor, is ~220,000 light years in diameter.

The exact numbers are just impossible to know due to the speed of light. The light of a star across from us in our galaxy could take close to 100,000 years to reach us. Shoot, it takes ~8 minutes for the light from our own sun to reach us and ~4 years for the light from the closest star to us to reach us. This means that some no longer exist and we don't know as the light increase from them going nova has not yet reached us. Also there are stars that have formed whose light has yet to reach us. Now consider that, in 20020, it was estimated that there were 2 trillion galaxies in our "observable universe"; We have yet to develop the ability to see the entire universe.

Now let's take the mid point of how many stars there are in our galaxy and call it 250 billion stars and we'll be generous and call our galaxy average. Now take that 250 billion stars times the estimate of 2 trillion galaxies in the part of the universe that we can see and the fact that we have discovered planets orbiting some stars in our own galaxy. This would indicate that there are likely many billions of stars that have planets just in our galaxy.

That all boils down to a whole bunch of planets out there! Our radio broadcasts have only reach a handful of stars so there has not been anywhere near enough of a sample to even come close to saying there is no life elsewhere. Now consider the thought that there is intelligent life on a planet orbiting a star our radio broadcasts have reached. There is no logical reason to assume that they even use or would detect our radio signals. Even if our broadcasts were detected it is most probably that they would not recognize our broadcast as an intelligent act as our forms of intelligence would most probably be totall alien to each other due to differences in evolution.

Now consider our deepest probe, Voyager 2 launched in 1977 is still within our solar system and will never leave before totally non functional.

Like Jodie Foster said in the movie Contact... "If there is no life out there it's an awful waste of space.".. That's a paraphrase as I can't, for fact, remember the exact quote.

The scientists have just told you this, you actually have no idea that it is true

 

[itiwhetu]

Well there’s a question

What’s scarier?

That there’s life out there, or that there isn’t?

Where there is energy there is life.

 

[jaylach]

The scientists have just told you this, you actually have no idea that it is true

True statement as there is no way that I have the equipment to do my own research. Still, in my opinion, there are too many researchers involved in this stuff for there to not be a 'whistle blower' if the info made public were fraudulent. In the best ways that I can I've been looking at this stuff for like 55 years.

I mean, just looking at our own carbon based life, if a planet is the right distance from its star, which is a wide variable distance, and has water, life is quite possible. Of course that does not mean that those conditions, and there are other conditions involved, means that there WILL be life and, especially does not mean there will be intelligent life.

Still, at least for me, the probably number of planets just in our own galaxy indicate that the probability of life is greater than there not being life. Occam's Razor would support this thought.

But then everyone is entitled to their own opinion. There are still many that believe the moon landing was a hoax. I'm not saying I'm right, just saying my opinion.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Jeff Bezos seems to have this grand plan of "borrowing" uninhabitable planets and transferring earthbound industry there. Using robotic workforces for each "industrial planet" with shuttles to/from earth with goods to earth and waste away to another set of uninhabitable planets. All food would be genetically grown in special laboratories on another planet.

He wants the earth to become a completely industy free residential only planet that has zero emissions, zero waste etc....100% pure Utopia, ruled from one central building. There would be classes according to one's wealth and standing in the community....no prejudice involved, you work hard, you get rewarded with a higher class level of accommodation. Any criminal aspect would be taken care of on yet another "borrowed" planet with human sustainable buildings, prisoners sent there would again have robotic staffing.

Now....I cannot make up my mind....is this an utopian or a dystopian vision?

Either way, methinks Bezos has way too much time on his hands.....and probably too much money to waste on such fanciful ideas.

 

[jaylach]

Jeff Bezos seems to have this grand plan of "borrowing" uninhabitable planets and transferring earthbound industry there. Using robotic workforces for each "industrial planet" with shuttles to/from earth with goods to earth and waste away to another set of uninhabitable planets. All food would be genetically grown in special laboratories on another planet.

He wants the earth to become a completely industy free residential only planet that has zero emissions, zero waste etc....100% pure Utopia, ruled from one central building. There would be classes according to one's wealth and standing in the community....no prejudice involved, you work hard, you get rewarded with a higher class level of accommodation. Any criminal aspect would be taken care of on yet another "borrowed" planet with human sustainable buildings, prisoners sent there would again have robotic staffing.

Now....I cannot make up my mind....is this an utopian or a dystopian vision?

Either way, methinks Bezos has way too much time on his hands.....and probably too much money to waste on such fanciful ideas.

Actually I'd say a dystopian and fatal vision as it seems to me that removing all strife would make us stagnant with less and less advancement.

As to using shuttles to form industrial establishments on other planets and/or asteroids there is a major fault. With what we have today shuttles just would not work as the cost of fuel would always exceed the value of the payload. Bringing a payload back to earth isn't the real issue if looking at asteroids. The issue is the cost to achieve escape velocity from Earth's gravity well. Still, there are models that show it is actually possible by using magnetic induction catapults instead of rockets/shuttles or anything else that takes fuel to reach escape velocity from Earth's gravity well. Even with such catapults there is still the problem of location and initial cost as the catapults would be miles long. Still the possibility seems more viable than shuttles. The 'pods' or whatever they would be if using catapults would also have to be totally robotic as the G-force generated by a magnetic induction catapult would be way beyond fatal for humans

Here is an example of such a catapult concept even though it describes being used for a small payload such as weaponry. Of course such a catapult could not be used for interstellar stuff. Even going with the asteroid belt for mining the trip each way would probably take months. What is cool about this concept is that it would take a much smaller catapult on a major asteroid for the return trip to Earth as the asteroid would have a very low escape velocity in relation to Earth's.

 

[GaryE]

Well there’s a question

What’s scarier?

That there’s life out there, or that there isn’t?

There's life out there. The question is what it is, not whether it is. As a start point to the thought game here, there have to be bacteria or archaea type organisms. They flourish in too many weird earthly environments for them not to flourish elsewhere.
It's not very long ago in our history that mainstream belief said the sun revolved around us, we were copies of gods and the whole show had only been running for a few thousand years. We humans like to use our intelligence to feel self-important.
Now we have to get our little heads around the vastness of time and the size of the universe. I see no fear either way. Other planets may be magnificent places, and we probably don't have the only one of those. Other life forms could be deadly predators, planet eaters, high tech Klingon imperialists or thoughtful builders of egalitarian societies, artists, killifish breeders and inventors. What's to fear? Maybe just finding out?
We could be ants to them, though kind of destructive ones - maybe termites. If intelligent life spots us, they may be totally indifferent to us, or as arrogant as we are so they don't even recognize that we have brains.
I remember reading a writer who talked about how his greatest fear was that there could be a creator that was totally indifferent to humans. That seems to scare a lot of people. I guess we can extend that and say some would fear meeting aliens who wouldn't be the least bit impressed by us. Maybe we'd be new food cultures for their aquatic pets. No doubt, we'll still be in the early stages of figuring out the basics of life on our own planet if we ever meet up with life on another world. And they'll probably be in the same process.
Aliens haven't arrived to do my water changes, so off I go...

 

[jaylach]

This is actually an interesting discussion... Just don't get me going on global warming (which is a fact) or the fact that our magnetic field is in the process of reversing. LOL! Tell me THAT isn't a 'lead in'.

 

[Oblio]

This is actually an interesting discussion... Just don't get me going on global warming (which is a fact) or the fact that our magnetic field is in the process of reversing. LOL! Tell me THAT isn't a 'lead in'.

Popcorn is done!

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Apparently Venus has more volcanoes, many of them active, than Earth does, so that ain't going to be much good as a Bezos lifeboat

Earth has 1500 active volcanoes, of which at least 47 are currently "farting" to some extent...both undersea and landbased.

The most dangerous semi active volcano covers most of Yellowstone....the geysers indicate that it is actually active. If it were to blow fully, not alot of the surrounding area would exist.

When Mt St Helens blew in 1980, the eruption knocked the Earth off its axis, this happened again when White Island, Krakatoa and Eyjafjallajökull blew their respective tops in the more recent history.

Now given that the Earth core is molten and has cycles of movement under the tectonic plates that occasionally escapes via the volcanoes, the planet on which we are camped out on is in charge.....not humans.

There have been 5 ice ages....the first recorded as 3 billion years ago (long before the industrial revolution) the last being 2 million years ago (again long before the industrial revolution) and thus long before humans produced engines.

There have been 5 mass extinctions...Ordovician-silurian Extinction: 440 million years ago, Devonian Extinction: 365 million years ago, Permian-triassic Extinction: 250 million years ago, Triassic-jurassic Extinction: 210 million years ago and Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction: 65 Million Years Ago.

Therefore it is safe to say that we humans are not significant enough in the Earth's many issues to cause or indeed succeed in another mass extinction nor are we capable of starting or controlling global warming. The Earth is its very own master of ceremonies in that department and we will become extinct long before the Earth either reheats excessively or freezes into another Ice Age.

(A sixth mass extinction is overdue....and I know that to some people that cannot come soon enough)

 

[jaylach]

Popcorn is done!

LOL! Is that an invite to expand this thread to different areas? Actually, if any wanted to get into such things as global warming and/or magnetic field shifts it should be in other threads...