Aliens

Georacer

Joined Nov 25, 2009
5,182
Just passing by...

But while I 'm at it, I just wanna say that new telescopes discover planets that resemble earth in size and temperature every day these days. Future might be very surprising...
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
They already have, a rocky planet in the temperate zone with a nitrogen atmosphere.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/05/nasa-space-telescope-discovers-another-earth/

Where there is one there will be more. We have just started this, and this planet is pretty close. Has to be, for what is a primitive tech like ours to see it so soon. When humans start feeling cocky think how long we have had the printed word (less than 40,000 years), and realized the universe is 16 Billion years old. There could be civilizations older than the age of the dinosaurs, or much older still. There are billions of stars in our Galaxy, and billions of Galaxies out there.

The universe is vast, the possibilities are endless. We are not God, to dictate what creation has wrought.
 
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Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
True enough. Though current theory suggests any inner planets will be rocky, and the gas planets will be the giants on the outside. Any solar system with a gas giant near their sun will have had their rocky inner planets eaten. This has been observed as well.

There is another body in this solar system that has liquid water in abundance, and may contain life. We haven't truly explored this solar system enough to make sweeping statements what is and isn't out there. Care to guess what it is?
 

DerStrom8

Joined Feb 20, 2011
2,390
There is another body in this solar system that has liquid water in abundance, and may contain life. We haven't truly explored this solar system enough to make sweeping statements what is and isn't out there. Care to guess what it is?
Mars? Or perhaps Pluto? Pluto is really more of a comet than anything else--It's just a big block of ice. Where there's ice, though, there's water.

That's something I've been really annoyed by for a long time--when people say that there can't be life on certain other planets because there's no water, or there's no oxygen. Or even that the planet is too close to the sun. But who are we to say there can't be life with those conditions? Isn't it possible that creatures were made to stand those sorts of conditions? Just take a look at the earth alone. There are animals that live in volcanic vents deep under the ocean's surface, where the water is hundreds of degrees--a temperature at which few other organisms can survive. And what about the fish in other parts of the ocean, where the water is extremely cold? There are fish that live there as well.

My point is that if we can see that much variation on our own earth, why can't it happen elsewhere in the universe? Creatures can adapt, and that is precisely why I keep an open mind on the subject.
 

Georacer

Joined Nov 25, 2009
5,182
If what you will say is scientific so the discussion will remain. Its current content is in the middle of science and offtopic anyway. Does it matter really?
 

Thread Starter

K7GUH

Joined Jan 28, 2011
190
Hmm, indeed. Perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of the word definition. (Stranger things have happened.) Discovery of other life forms, life on other planets, and the like, wouldn't this be taking place in this universe, the one we now inhabit?
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
If what you will say is scientific so the discussion will remain. Its current content is in the middle of science and offtopic anyway. Does it matter really?
I really matters to some. I'll just leave it at that.

Anyways, I don't see how a discussion of aliens could possibly scientific, so I'll just fire away and say what I think:

What DerStrom said.
I can't say it much better than that.
I think it's incredibly foolish to assume there's not life on other planets, and other galxies.
 

THE_RB

Joined Feb 11, 2008
5,438
From a common sense analysis, based on facts from our own solar system it seems that planets are almost inevitable. Whatever forces form a star seem to leave a lot of matter in orbit that eventually settles into planets. All that matter clumps and falls into orbits, even planets have things orbiting them (moons).

So it stands to reason that most stars will have planets, and probably multiple planets, and stars of a similar size to ours that formed in a similar way will have planets within the temperate zone (to have liquid water). So even in our own little galaxy of X billion stars there must be a ton (hundreds? thousands?) of temperate planets.

And the facts we have about life is that it infests practically anywhere where it's even remotely possible. Deep sea sulphur pipes and their own almost impossible ecosystems, high in the atmosphere there are critters whose ecosystem never even touches solid ground etc. Even if planetwide life is snuffed by a massive catastrophe (ie the dinosaur eras) it just reforms into different lifeforms and re-infests the planet.

Based on those two rational facts; that planets should be incredibly common, and life seems to infest anywhere where there is a possibility, makes the assumption that there are other planets with life practically guaranteed.

I want to know how many of those planets are close enough that we could observe or send probes...
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
I want to know how many of those planets are close enough that we could observe or send probes...
We've barely gotten probes outside our own solar system, until a better propulsion system is used (Orion), or a new energy source is found, or FTL is possible, we wouldn't know results for a few hundred years.

New Horizons has already traveled further from Earth in several years than the Viking explorers have since their launch in the 70's, though it is heading out of the ecliptic, it may find something interesting.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
What is going to be interesting is what happens if we ever find a planet in the right zone for its sun and shows a signature for nitrogen and oxygen. Far as we know oxygen is pretty clear signature for something biological, so if we see this how to interpret the data?
 

BillO

Joined Nov 24, 2008
999
I think it's incredibly foolish to assume there's not life on other planets, and other galxies.
I think we have something to agree on.

The only issue I see in the verification of this is the lack of a decent transportation system. Even communication is not likely in our lives. Let's say there were 1000 other species as advanced or more advanced than us in our galaxy. assuming a uniform distribution, that would put the density of such species at a level such that our closest neighbors would be on average more than a 1000 light years away. So, even if they ever do receive a transmission from us and respond to us, we wouldn't hear from them for another 2000 years or so.
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
Europa is a moon of Jupiter coated with ice, and there is a strong argument there are oceans of liquid water underneath that ice. It is big enough to be classed a planet if it weren't orbiting Jupiter. It is definitely worth looking at.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)
Since there is life in the giant lakes under Antarctica, I wonder if life would be under that frozen moon as well.
 

THE_RB

Joined Feb 11, 2008
5,438
...
The only issue I see in the verification of this is the lack of a decent transportation system. Even communication is not likely in our lives. Let's say there were 1000 other species as advanced or more advanced than us in our galaxy. assuming a uniform distribution, that would put the density of such species at a level such that our closest neighbors would be on average more than a 1000 light years away. So, even if they ever do receive a transmission from us and respond to us, we wouldn't hear from them for another 2000 years or so.
Well relying on lightspeed comms as a galaxy wide communications system is like the ancient Romans relying on hilltop fire signals as a worldwide communications system.

Eveything is just a matter of technology. For anyone with sufficiently advanced technology the boundaries become much smaller.
 

AlexR

Joined Jan 16, 2008
732
Faster than Light Speed communications might not be very suitable for galaxy wide comms but I'm afraid that's all there is and no amount of technology is going to change it.
Imagining that technology can over-ride the physical laws just because we would like to communicate or travel faster than light is wishful thinking and belongs either in the off-topic thread or better still in a science-fiction thread (if we had one) rather than in the physics forum.
 
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