Are we really alone? Life beyond the stars.....

[F22RaptorDude]

I'd like to live forever just to see the alien invasion in 3000 lol 

[Karnak]

The real problem with thinking of alien intelligence is.....for how long in a species history would the kinds of signals we listen for actually be used?  We've been using them for just under 100 years, about 1/60th of our recorded history or 1/1000th of our species' estimated time of existence or 1/38,000,000th the estimated time life has existed on Earth.  How long before radio signals aren't used for communications much?

An alien species' version of SETI could have pointed at our star 5,000 years ago, after all it is probably the prime kind of star to listen at, and they would have found nothing, even if they kept checking back for the next 4,900 years they wouldn't catch a hint that we were here.

Look at that and think of the odds, should two sentient species meet, of them having anything like similar levels of technology.

[FiLtH]

A real buzzkill for dreamers would be that we are the most advanced species in the universe.

[FireDrgn]

Of course there is life out there. How do u think we got here.

[Plazus]

"Are we alone in this universe?"

Well... what do YOU think? It really just depends on what you believe in. Do you have faith? A science education? A religion you follow? The list goes on. As of right now, there is not a single evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. So right now, life does not exist in the universe until we find PROOF.

[MiloMorai]

"Are we alone in this universe?"

Well... what do YOU think? It really just depends on what you believe in. Do you have faith? A science education? A religion you follow? The list goes on. As of right now, there is not a single evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. So right now, life does not exist in the universe until we find PROOF.

There are between 10 sextillion and 1 septillion stars in the Universe. I would say the odds of intelligent life out there is astronomical.

[saggs]

As of right now, there is not a single evidence of life elsewhere in the universe.

Except for possible fossils found on Mars by the rovers, H2o ice on Mars found by Odyssey, and the vast oceans which once covered it's surface.  There WAS life on Mars, right next door.  Not to mention liquid water on Io under the ice caps, which means there is likely life there.  (name me one place on earth where there is liquid water without life.)  All this in our very own tiny solar system.

I think you have the definition of evidence wrong, it does not mean holding ET life in your own hands and seeing it with your own eyes.  Evidence can be, and often is based on statistics and circumstance, and right now there is plenty of statistical and circumstantial evidence of other life in the universe, lots of it, some possibly in our own solar system.

[Rhah]

Except for fossils found on Mars by the rovers, H2o ice on Mars found by Odyssey, and the vast oceans which once covered it's surface.  There WAS life on Mars, right next door.  Not to mention liquid water on Io under the ice caps, which means there is likely life there.  (name me one place on earth where there is liquid water without life.)  All this in our very own tiny solar system.

I think you have the definition of evidence wrong, it does not mean holding ET life in your own hands and seeing it with your own eyes.  Evidence can be, and often is based on statistics and circumstance, and right now there is plenty of statistical and circumstantial evidence of other life in the universe, lots of it, some possibly in our own solar system.

please post where you found this dribble

[saggs]

Are we really alone? a ridiculus question.

the real question is, are we really alone in our galaxy, and it looks like, yes.
our galaxie is aprox 100 000 lightyears wide, so the light from the widest star
in our galaxie hit us the last 100 000 years and still no no contact.... _(strange)

a wise man once said, a species (any kind) have to survive at leat 200 000 years
to get (maybe) in contact with another life form.

it still didnt happend, because its to early for us humans, we need a minimum of additional 100 000 years.

plenty of room...BUT if we get a signal from such an OLD galaxie (you talking about), and we respond today,
it would took us another 13.2 bill. lightyears until our signal hit them, and if they send
a signal back it would take another 13.2 bill. lightyears until it reaches us back....
theoretically, but that time our signal hit the distant galaxie back, they would allready not exsist  

anyway, so it would take us aprox 26.4 bill. lightyears to get an answere.
you see its just ridiculus

WE will never know, maybe in between the next 100 000 years inside our galaxie,
and even then to get an echo, we need another 200 000 years

and all this is is done with the speed of photons (light)
but moving real humans around in the galaxie would cost us much much much more time  

Your making the assumption that "they" want to, or have tried to contact us.   Also your whole premise about communication and travel at or near light speed is pointless.  Even with our puny beginning of understanding of stuff like quantum entanglement, we are beginning to see that faster then light communication is possible.  Faster then light travel can't be far behind, whether it's wormholes or extra-dimensional or whatever.

There could be civilizations out there (in our galaxy) that have millions of years of advancement on us.  Why would they want to contact us, we are like babes in the woods, we have nothing to offer such an advanced society.  Perhaps they know we exist and are happy to let us find our own way, then if we survive and evolve past our present stage of humanity, maybe then they will contact us, or maybe not.   Like the "prime directive" from Star Trek, yes.. a cheesy show, put that principle seems realistic to me.  

[saggs]

please post where you found this dribble

Ummmm, just some crackpots nutjobs at a little place called NASA.

Ice on Mars, from the Odyssey spacecraft.

 notice the ice sublimating in the bottom left of the trench.

Ice exposed by meteor impact photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter


Concretions on Mars


the rovers found these little "blueberries" everywhere, and they could only have been formed by liquid water, see story here http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2004/88.cfm.  NASA freely admits now that they believe Mars was once covered by vast oceans. See this story http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro20101031.html as just one example.

Or this story http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20101028.html where a rover found evidence of "recent snow melt"

As for fossils the rovers took pictures of several things that "could be" fossils, NASA has always just stopped short of using the F-word though.  They have stated that the next rover will be landed in an area they expect to be a "fossil hotbed" <- folks from NASA's words not mine.

[moot]

A real buzzkill for dreamers would be that we are the most advanced species in the universe.

It sucks for sure not to be predated.

The real problem with thinking of alien intelligence is.....for how long in a species history would the kinds of signals we listen for actually be used?  We've been using them for just under 100 years, about 1/60th of our recorded history or 1/1000th of our species' estimated time of existence or 1/38,000,000th the estimated time life has existed on Earth.  How long before radio signals aren't used for communications much?

An alien species' version of SETI could have pointed at our star 5,000 years ago, after all it is probably the prime kind of star to listen at, and they would have found nothing, even if they kept checking back for the next 4,900 years they wouldn't catch a hint that we were here.

Look at that and think of the odds, should two sentient species meet, of them having anything like similar levels of technology.

I think taking this idea further gives slightly different picture, as far as odds of just meeting (but consistent with tech level mismatch): if ours is any clue, a civilization ought to go thru growing pains (chance of wiping itself out) and then acclimatize to the open universe.. If so (e.g. ramping up the Kardashev scale), beaming out signals thru some outdated tech ought to be pretty easy.

Personally, I'd agree with Hawking.  Let's grow some sturdy roots into the worlds of this system, at the very least, before inviting anyone over.  Space travel might be a universal time/space buffer of protection, but it's a huge universe and it's not wise to assume anything.. E.G. what if instead of flying over here, some aliens just get rid of us by pointing an Eta Carina at us, or some other thing we don't know about.


Saggs - the key thing you left out of your second set of replies is how water must equate to "life". 

[Clone155]

There probably is life out there in the universe. Maybe something like a cow and some grass, but certainly no Vulcans.

[mipoikel]

I just wait when Cylons are coming back....

[moot]

A real buzzkill for dreamers would be that we are the most advanced species in the universe.

It sucks for sure not to be predated.

Put another way - dreamers aren't gonna see any alien species in their lifetimes anyway.  So they're literally all about the dreaming.  And there's plenty to dream of should we be most advanced for long enough to see something like a tech singularity to happen, where it's quite possible for humanity to branch off into different species.  There's no clues yet that we've exhausted much of what the universe has to offer, as far as discoveries go. IOW today's leading edge in theoretical physics, etc, is probably at least as primitive as silex flint is to e.g. the LHC, to "technology" a few hundred or a thousand years from now.  It'll probably be alien to us today in all but name.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

The real problem with thinking of alien intelligence is.....for how long in a species history would the kinds of signals we listen for actually be used?  

This is also why we should be very very worried if we actually received something 10-20 000 lightyears away. We'd be just that much behind in technology should they decide to give a visit.