Do you believe in possibility of life in other galaxies?

[bearnard18]

With over a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. It is hard for me to believe that there is not at least one other solar system with life. Especially, when some scientists claim that they have already found some exoplanets that can be like Earth.

[Azazel]

Yes, absolutely.

I think it's kind of naive to believe we are special and alone. 

If you think how many stars are out there in the billions of galaxies, each with their own solar systems and possible planets orbiting them, surely there has to be something else.

On the subject of aliens etc, I'm not even convinced we would recognise them/be able to communicate with them if we saw them - especially if they are so far advanced they are able to traverse space.

 

[joggs]

Obviously we have no proof of intelligent life out there but why would there just be us?. 

 

[Airedalejoe]

Not the slightest doubt!

[Northernlights]

21 minutes ago, Airedalejoe said:

Not the slightest doubt!

Agreed

[Eagle Eye]

3 hours ago, bearnard18 said:

With over a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. It is hard for me to believe that there is not at least one other solar system with life. Especially, when some scientists claim that they have already found some exoplanets that can be like Earth.

We've already found Bacterial life in our own Solar System On Mars. 

[BornFromTheVoid]

27 minutes ago, Eagle Eye said:

We've already found Bacterial life in our own Solar System On Mars. 

You're gonna need to provide some proof for that one!

[bearnard18]

45 minutes ago, Eagle Eye said:

We've already found Bacterial life in our own Solar System On Mars. 

If you have a link that proves your words please share because I am hearing such thing for the first time. I agree that there is a possibility that some forms of life can be found on the surface of Mars as it has water ( to be more accurate ice )

[bearnard18]

3 hours ago, Azazel said:

Yes, absolutely.

I think it's kind of naive to believe we are special and alone. 

If you think how many stars are out there in the billions of galaxies, each with their own solar systems and possible planets orbiting them, surely there has to be something else.

On the subject of aliens etc, I'm not even convinced we would recognise them/be able to communicate with them if we saw them - especially if they are so far advanced they are able to traverse space.

 

I think so too. Recently I`ve read an article that the Earth-like planet was found.  "Earth Like Planet Found orbiting Proxima Centauri" by Al Paslow, published Sept.1, 2016; updated June 12, 2017, Mystic Sciences. Amazing detailed online article with artist illustration. 

[Eagle Eye]

1 hour ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

You're gonna need to provide some proof for that one!

There used to be most likely heard in the News that they'd found life on Mars. 

Evidence for Microbial Life on Mars: Fossilized Bacteria? | AMNH

WWW.AMNH.ORG

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A meteorite that escaped from Mars 16 million years ago was found in Antarctica. Is it evidence of life on the red planet?

But I imagine there is Bacterial Life because there is an Atmosphere and its a bit like Antarctica Heat. 

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

1 minute ago, Eagle Eye said:

There used to be most likely heard in the News that they'd found life on Mars. 

Evidence for Microbial Life on Mars: Fossilized Bacteria? | AMNH

WWW.AMNH.ORG

---

A meteorite that escaped from Mars 16 million years ago was found in Antarctica. Is it evidence of life on the red planet?

But I imagine there is Bacterial Life because there is an Atmosphere and its a bit like Antarctica Heat. 

 

Cheers for the link. So it seems the fossil evidence is questionable (many other interpretations for the findings that don't require life).

The interesting thing, at least according to the great filter ideas from the Fermi paradox, is if we find evidence for life on Mars it could be really bad sign for humanity. Even fossil evidence would indicate that the emergence of life is very common throughout the universe. If that's true, then given the age of the universe, we should see signs of intelligent life everywhere. Because we don't have evidence of intelligent life anywhere else, it means something is either deliberately wiping out other intelligent lifeforms, intelligent life naturally wipes itself out or the emergence of intelligence is a cosmically rare fluke and we really are alone. Two of those three possibilities would suggest that we don't have long left as a species.

[Yarmy]

2 hours ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Cheers for the link. So it seems the fossil evidence is questionable (many other interpretations for the findings that don't require life).

The interesting thing, at least according to the great filter ideas from the Fermi paradox, is if we find evidence for life on Mars it could be really bad sign for humanity. Even fossil evidence would indicate that the emergence of life is very common throughout the universe. If that's true, then given the age of the universe, we should see signs of intelligent life everywhere. Because we don't have evidence of intelligent life anywhere else, it means something is either deliberately wiping out other intelligent lifeforms, intelligent life naturally wipes itself out or the emergence of intelligence is a cosmically rare fluke and we really are alone. Two of those three possibilities would suggest that we don't have long left as a species.

 

This is the 'Dark Forest' theory that's the basis for the Three-Body Problem trilogy of Sci-Fi novels by Cixin Liu. Essentially, it's a really, really bad idea to advertise your presence in the universe. We've been doing that inadvertently for about 100 years or so. 

Anyway, it seems that simple cellular life can spring up reasonably easily, but complex life is much harder to achieve. And intelligent life capable of evolving to reason about the world around it has happened precisely once in the Earth's history, so that would seem to be extremely rare.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Yarmy

[Weather-history]

Yes.

Given the fact that life on this planet has existed for about 3.5 billion years ago and still going, logic to me says that there is no reason why life couldn't have started on some other planet in the universe even if it now doesn't exist or didn't evolve to more advance forms etc as life on here has. 

I think there are 4687 exoplanets been found so far and counting that is just in our own galaxy. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Weather-history

[Ed Stone]

I agree too -- the idea that we humans are the Universe's only intelligent life-form seems to me to be absurd. As far as we know, carbon chemistry is the same everywhere, so why wouldn't carbon-chemistry lead to life elsewhere?

I do have one worry though: What if our 'human' penchant for self-annihilation is also a principle that applies to all intelligent life?

Edited March 23, 2021 by General Cluster

[summer blizzard]

There’s no doubt for me.

We have around 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone, around 80 billion of those being Class F, G or K (though it now seems likely we can get habitable worlds even if tidally locked around M type stars) and the science suggests there at least as many planets as stars. This also ignores moons (Titan suggests that atmospheric moons could be reasonably common).

We know that rocky planets outnumber gas giants (the most common being larger than earth and closer to the star) but even with current methods favouring larger, closer planets around stars we still find about 1.5% being very similar to earth rather than Venus (the most common so far) or ice giants (none comparable in our system). So at worst our current science (which again is likely to downplay rather than overplay the number of likely earths) suggests 1.2bn earths, potentially more like 6 billion and possibly more as our telescopes become more sensitive.

Even allowing for 1% of worlds on our lower boundary producing intelligent life (Earth produced life in a billion years) then we are at tens of millions of worlds.

Now whether interstellar travel is achievable or a system of 4 gas giants and some rocks looks interesting enough to visit is another question.

[iand61]

I’d put the chances of us being alone in the universe at pretty much zero and the chances of intelligent life elsewhere at extremely likely.

whether alien life has visited Earth is another matter though although given the short period of time it has taken the human race to get from living in caves to exploring space and the fact that the potential for life has lasted billions of years, there’s a good chance that civilisations capable of interstellar travel could have lived and died long before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

I turn 60 this year and remember watching the first moon landings but I’m still confident off seeing a human set foot on Mars and proof of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy in my lifetime.

[swebby]

On 23/03/2021 at 09:09, bearnard18 said:

With over a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. It is hard for me to believe that there is not at least one other solar system with life. Especially, when some scientists claim that they have already found some exoplanets that can be like Earth.

Big question is "complex" life?  As the difference between simple single celled and complex life that has cell differentiation is huge.

Alien single celled forms of life must be a certainty, at this level it is just a case of the right conditions and suitable time periods being available for the inevitable biochemistry to occur.

Complex multicellular life however is a very different kettle of fish.  It is postulated that simple, single celled forms of life  emerged multiple times on the Earth at the earliest opportunity, but multicellular organisms just a few times as this requires a very rare set of events to happen.

My punt however is that given the sheer size of the observable universe, there will be enough opportunity for complex life to have evolved, and sentient intelligent life is a natural progression from that point.

[bearnard18]

20 hours ago, summer blizzard said:

There’s no doubt for me.

We have around 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone, around 80 billion of those being Class F, G or K (though it now seems likely we can get habitable worlds even if tidally locked around M type stars) and the science suggests there at least as many planets as stars. This also ignores moons (Titan suggests that atmospheric moons could be reasonably common).

We know that rocky planets outnumber gas giants (the most common being larger than earth and closer to the star) but even with current methods favouring larger, closer planets around stars we still find about 1.5% being very similar to earth rather than Venus (the most common so far) or ice giants (none comparable in our system). So at worst our current science (which again is likely to downplay rather than overplay the number of likely earths) suggests 1.2bn earths, potentially more like 6 billion and possibly more as our telescopes become more sensitive.

Even allowing for 1% of worlds on our lower boundary producing intelligent life (Earth produced life in a billion years) then we are at tens of millions of worlds.

Now whether interstellar travel is achievable or a system of 4 gas giants and some rocks looks interesting enough to visit is another question.

So lets see what one space mission will discover us)
I`ve read an article about Ariel space telescope. The mission is dedicated to surveying planets found beyond our solar system, otherwise known as exoplanets or extrasolar planets, in order to study the formation and evolution of their atmospheres.

[Mapantz]

It's easy to assume odds with the sheer size of the universe, but we don't know how life started on Earth. Multiple rocky exo-planets found to be in a habitable zone isn't enough to suggest it can harbour life.

[summer blizzard]

Right on que, TESS has now added another 2200 candidates.
 

Space Telescope Delivers the Goods: 2,200 Possible Planets – Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System

EXOPLANETS.NASA.GOV

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A newly published catalog reveals 2,200 new exoplanet candidates, found in data captured by TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

 

1 hour ago, Mapantz said:

It's easy to assume odds with the sheer size of the universe, but we don't know how life started on Earth. Multiple rocky exo-planets found to be in a habitable zone isn't enough to suggest it can harbour life.

Well the argument in favour goes that the ingrediants for life are likely widespread like liquid mediums and organic compounds (Titan has all the ingrediants for RNA and a liquid medium). The question here of course is whether another spark is required that is much more unqiue (if i just give you flour and sugar that's not a cake before its cooked) and if humans are the exception in crossing a intelligence barrier.

I tend to lean in favour of humans being common and unexceptional lifeforms but of course our science can not yet support my claim on any real statistical basis.

[Frost HoIIow]

I've always believed we aren't alone in the universe. I think the chances of us being the only intelligent life is zero given the sheer size of the universe, if it's happened here then it must have elsewhere. There's probably millions of Earth like planets out there. I also think we have been visited by others as well over a long period of time, think of it like animals in a zoo - we are the animals in that zoo being watched. And when you read testimonies of highly regarded pilots & military personnel who have seen aircraft that manoeuvre in a way that is way above our own capabilities and look well "out of this world" and also turning off nuclear missiles then you've got to sit up and think some other life forms must be far more advanced than us. And have some how managed to defy the laws of speed to get here (what we think of as "impossible" might not be to super intelligent species?). Also we've had people like the late Edgar Mitchell, who was a well respected Astronaut who seems to know a lot about this stuff. He truly believed in all this too. Google him and what his views were on UFOs and life outside of our planet. I do think NASA knows full well about us being visited too and most of the world's governments are keeping quiet about as well. The good thing though - if these "aliens" were hostile we'd have been long gone by now. That's not to say there's isn't any hostile ones out there but what I'm saying is the ones who have been here are not.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Frost HoIIow

[cheeky_monkey]

forget the universe ..and just focus on our galaxy. The fact is galaxies are moving away from each other at such a speed it would be near impossible to travel from one galaxy to the next..to me its inevitable that intelligent life has evolved on hugely multiple occasions..life could well have been seeded in our solar system by intelligent life a long time ago.

[bearnard18]

17 hours ago, Mapantz said:

It's easy to assume odds with the sheer size of the universe, but we don't know how life started on Earth. Multiple rocky exo-planets found to be in a habitable zone isn't enough to suggest it can harbour life.

That is a good point. That is why we need to keep on discovering new exoplanets and get some new information about them. That is why Ariel space telescope is rather important mission for further discovering of exoplanets and some details about them.
https://www.skyrora.com/blog/tag/space-innovations 

[Relativistic]

It's essentially an impossibility that life doesn't exist elsewhere. The likes of Mars and Enceladus even just within the solar system are strong candidates.

However, as others have alluded to, complex lifeforms such as ourselves may we far rarer. It's taken over three billion years for intelligent life to evolve from the first single-celled organisms that appeared on Earth. Put another way, it took relatively stable conditions over time scales comparable to the age of the Universe to cook up humanity; if Earth is in any way representative of the majority of occurrences of intelligent life, then one has to ask questions about the assumptions that are fed into estimates on the number of intelligent species in our galaxy. Earth-like exoplanets are frequently discovered, but how likely is it that their local environments remain stable enough to facilitate the development of intelligent life? Perhaps humanity won a cosmological lottery?

My opinion is that the number of intelligent civilisations in the Milky Way is very low. The Milky Way is approximately 8 trillion cubic light years in volume, so even if as much as a thousand such civilisations existed at the present time (whatever that means), then one can roughly expect each one to occupy a cube of side length 2000 light years. That's a long way to travel to meet your next-door neighbour, and I consider that an under-estimate.

As for Fermi's paradox, given the above argument, and the fact that we've only been searching the skies for a relatively miniscule period of time, it's not that surprising that we've neither come into contact with intelligent life, nor have we conclusively detected it (although there have been a couple of candidates; see the Wow! signal).

Edited March 25, 2021 by Relativistic

[bearnard18]

I assume that some forms of live can live on some of these exoplanets but I don`t expect that there live something intelligent like human life though.