Is there other life in the Universe?

[blue]

So, we have all (well most of us) at one point in our lives wondered weather there is other life forms (even humans) exsisting in the vast Universe, take Aliens for example, most people believe that's all rubbish, but is there proof that they don't exsist, where did the term Aliens come from in the first place and why are there still stories on this, surely someone must have seen something out of the ordinary and gave it this title? ​

There are surely millions upon billions of Planets with Earth like features out in the Universe quite likely sustatining life only they haven't been discovered yet, so whos to say that we're the only Human life to exsist? surely that would be too rare to be true and we can't say for sure untill we find actual evidence on other Planets.​

So what do you think, do you think life exsists in other parts of the Universe, or are alone?​

​

 

[Oryx]

I believe that thinking we're literally the only thing out there when we're smaller than a grain of sand on a beach is one of the most self-centered ways to think. Of course there's other life out there, we just can't find it. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there's a whole connected universe out there, Douglas Adams style.

 

[TheMysteryEgg]

We already have suspicions though we have only explored like 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the universe. What about the other percent? I am almost sure there is other life. But we might not know that until something like a Battle Los Angeles situation happens.

 

[blue]

We already have suspicions though we have only explored like 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the universe. What about the other percent? I am almost sure there is other life. But we might not know that until something like a Battle Los Angeles situation happens.

Exactly, there's still so much more to explore, and I saw that movie last week, I'm sure we'd be proved if that happened ;)

 

[Dark Piplup]

I think it's very unlikely.(it would be so cool if it existed!)But it is possible.

 

[blue]

I do think there is a high chance, because think how much of the Universe is unexplored and think how big the Universe actually is.

 

[Eliminator Jr.]

Copy pasta from copy pasta from the last thread on this. That's double the copy pasta.

Okay, just a little bit of math here for you. Nothing complex, just basic multiplication and division.

Okay, so we have like 100 billion stars in a galaxy on average (the Milky Way is predicted to have between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, and some galaxies have less than this (and some have much more) so we'll be conservative and just for the sake of argument assume the average is just 100,000,000,000 stars).

Now, with our current technology we're pretty certain there are at least 50 billion galaxies out there, although estimates are that there are FAR more. Just for the sake of argument let's say there are only 50 billion galaxies (even though the real number is likely to be more than double this amount). Now, by multiplying these two numbers together (100 billion stars per galaxy where there are 50 billion galaxies), we get a total of 5 x 10^21 stars (or 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, that's 5 sextillion stars).

Of course, not every star system has planets on it, however it's thought to be very common for stars to have planets in orbit around them. Let us assume that only... one in a million stars has a planetary system (that's being very conservative). And to keep things simple, let's assume that every one of these solar systems has only one planet, even though they're likely to have more (remember our Solar System has eight). So divide the number of stars by the number of stars with a planet (1 in a million, so by a million) and we have 5 x 10^15 planets in the universe (or 5,000,000,000,000,000, that's 5 quadrillion planets).

Also not every planet is capable of supporting life, so let's say 1 in a million planets is capable of supporting life (so only one planet in every million is capable of supporting life, that's a low estimate). So all up we have 5 x 10^9 planets that can support life (or 5,000,000,000, that's 5 billion planets).

So get this - 5 billion planets in the universe are capable of supporting human-like life according to this little math thingy (that's not including all the planets that could host other types of life, for example the arsenic-based life recently discovered, or other undiscovered forms of life). Let's remember that we've assumed a lower number of galaxies than there actually is, a lot lower number of star systems with planets than there is, a lower number of planets per average solar system than there is thought to be and a lower amount of planets capable of supporting life than there probably is. 5 billion planets is a much smaller estimate than probable, but even then - five billion planets! You can't look at that and say that there is NO life out there.

There's a few problems though. How common is life, exactly? The most accepted theory to the beginning of life was that it was an accident, that amino acids that had been moving around for a long, long period of time happened to collide in the right way and that started a chain reaction that gave birth to life. How likely would this be to happen? And then on top of this, we need to figure out if life would even evolve past bacteria and single-cell organisms. I don't know exactly, but I think it was like 2 and a half billion years for us to evolve from cells. Stars don't last forever and that 2 and a half billion years has taken up a lot of our sun's lifetime. What if life hadn't evolved far enough before its local star died? Also, what if life hadn't evolved on a particular planet enough to be considered intelligent or self aware?

Also, if there are intelligent aliens somewhere else in the universe, it's likely that they are far more advanced than we are. I mean, what are the chances that all advanced civilisations are progressing at the same rate we are and at the same time (in the same tens of thousands of years or whatever)? Our medical advancements have been amazing, what if these other life forms have found the secret to practically being immortal? The point I'm making is, if there is advanced life, why haven't we come in contact with them yet? Surely if they're that advanced they would have figured out a way to travel great distances in a short amount of time by now. Are they avoiding contact with us? Is it inevitable that intelligent life destroys itself before it is advanced enough to contact extra-terrestrial life?

Despite the points against there being intelligent life, I do believe there is intelligent life out there. Think of how big the universe is, how many stars, how many galaxies... it'd just be weird if we were the only race.

(Now I expect to get *shot* by Mizan or another science person if I got something wrong)

 

[Morgnarok]

There is other life for sure out there but the true question is will we ever find it.

 

[kissing. raindrops]

There is more life out there, no doubt about it. We just don't have the technology to locate more planets way beyond our solar system. We obviously haven't had the ability yet to discover more creatures living out there.

 

[Impo]

Wow, this is my independent research thread for Science.

I'm very certain there is some other form of extraterrestrial life not on Earth.
But we probably won't find it until we have advanced in certain areas of science.

 

[Livewire]

I believe that mathematically, it's been essentially proven that other life exists somewhere in the universe, per the Drake Equation:

Basically, using the milky way as a model, we can infer that due to the vastness of the universe, that there are hundreds of thousands of other Galaxies similar enough to ours, and each of those hundred-thousand galaxies has millions of planets, so the odds are astronomically high that extraterrestrial life exists elsewhere in the universe.

 

[Xyrin]

Copy pasta from copy pasta from the last thread on this. That's double the copy pasta.

Okay, just a little bit of math here for you. Nothing complex, just basic multiplication and division.

Okay, so we have like 100 billion stars in a galaxy on average (the Milky Way is predicted to have between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, and some galaxies have less than this (and some have much more) so we'll be conservative and just for the sake of argument assume the average is just 100,000,000,000 stars).

Now, with our current technology we're pretty certain there are at least 50 billion galaxies out there, although estimates are that there are FAR more. Just for the sake of argument let's say there are only 50 billion galaxies (even though the real number is likely to be more than double this amount). Now, by multiplying these two numbers together (100 billion stars per galaxy where there are 50 billion galaxies), we get a total of 5 x 10^21 stars (or 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, that's 5 sextillion stars).

Of course, not every star system has planets on it, however it's thought to be very common for stars to have planets in orbit around them. Let us assume that only... one in a million stars has a planetary system (that's being very conservative). And to keep things simple, let's assume that every one of these solar systems has only one planet, even though they're likely to have more (remember our Solar System has eight). So divide the number of stars by the number of stars with a planet (1 in a million, so by a million) and we have 5 x 10^15 planets in the universe (or 5,000,000,000,000,000, that's 5 quadrillion planets).

Also not every planet is capable of supporting life, so let's say 1 in a million planets is capable of supporting life (so only one planet in every million is capable of supporting life, that's a low estimate). So all up we have 5 x 10^9 planets that can support life (or 5,000,000,000, that's 5 billion planets).

So get this - 5 billion planets in the universe are capable of supporting human-like life according to this little math thingy (that's not including all the planets that could host other types of life, for example the arsenic-based life recently discovered, or other undiscovered forms of life). Let's remember that we've assumed a lower number of galaxies than there actually is, a lot lower number of star systems with planets than there is, a lower number of planets per average solar system than there is thought to be and a lower amount of planets capable of supporting life than there probably is. 5 billion planets is a much smaller estimate than probable, but even then - five billion planets! You can't look at that and say that there is NO life out there.

There's a few problems though. How common is life, exactly? The most accepted theory to the beginning of life was that it was an accident, that amino acids that had been moving around for a long, long period of time happened to collide in the right way and that started a chain reaction that gave birth to life. How likely would this be to happen? And then on top of this, we need to figure out if life would even evolve past bacteria and single-cell organisms. I don't know exactly, but I think it was like 2 and a half billion years for us to evolve from cells. Stars don't last forever and that 2 and a half billion years has taken up a lot of our sun's lifetime. What if life hadn't evolved far enough before its local star died? Also, what if life hadn't evolved on a particular planet enough to be considered intelligent or self aware?

Also, if there are intelligent aliens somewhere else in the universe, it's likely that they are far more advanced than we are. I mean, what are the chances that all advanced civilisations are progressing at the same rate we are and at the same time (in the same tens of thousands of years or whatever)? Our medical advancements have been amazing, what if these other life forms have found the secret to practically being immortal? The point I'm making is, if there is advanced life, why haven't we come in contact with them yet? Surely if they're that advanced they would have figured out a way to travel great distances in a short amount of time by now. Are they avoiding contact with us? Is it inevitable that intelligent life destroys itself before it is advanced enough to contact extra-terrestrial life?

Despite the points against there being intelligent life, I do believe there is intelligent life out there. Think of how big the universe is, how many stars, how many galaxies... it'd just be weird if we were the only race.

(Now I expect to get *shot* by Mizan or another science person if I got something wrong)

One flaw. How many have we found that could support life out of how many we have seen. I don't life exists elsewhere.

 

[Rudy]

i like to think so.
mostly because i like the idea of one day meeting a real life vulcan :y


but also because i imagine that however we got here, we didn't get here alone. so many places in space and earth is the only populated planet? i don't think so. maybe that's because i figure that, given how huge this universe is, our little race seems a bit lonely! surely we can't be the only living beings in the universe... that doesn't really make sense to me.

 

[Zeffy]

One flaw. How many have we found that could support life out of how many we have seen. I don't life exists elsewhere.

Your post is a flaw. :U
Haven't you put into consideration that other life forms might have a different form of life support? Like they don't need oxygen, and they need other kinds of gas? And that they don't need water? And that they're completely different?

Space travel isn't even that great at the moment. We're just a grain of sand in the whole universe, the universe is big and vast or endless as some says. We can't prove that there's life but we also can't prove that there is really no life if we only have explored about 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% of the universe.

 

[PlatinumDude]

To put this in short, it's possible that there's life out there somewhere in the universe; we're just too far away to observe it.

 

[Hiche..]

It would be cool. I don't think those extraterrestrial life forms would come to Earth with rounded spaceships wanting to colonize the planet and exterminate humans. If other life forms do exist, I'm hoping they look like us, but with pointy ears and have superhuman strength, a higher degree of intelligence, and the ability to talk..English.

Like mentioned by some, the universe is vast. Chances are mathematically high that somewhere, light years away, there is some sort of life in that huge realm we call space. So, let us hope we find them before they do, and prove we are superior!!!! more concrete evidence on that matter.

 

[Steven]

It's inevitable. There are multiple places in our solar system that could support life. One perfect example is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.

Also keep it mind that there can be more than Earth-like life out there. There could be life that evolved on a planet like Venus, or a moon like Titan that would look at our planet and think we're a hell hole. Nothing says life can't evolve outside of Earth's conditions.

Keep in mind though, if life evolved on a cold moon like Titan, it would be incredibly slow moving and probably never make it past the microbial stage.

Hurray for biology.

 

[Palamon]

Yes. I totally believe the theory of life in another universe. Earth isn't the only planet with life-force. I hope somone is brave enough to go to another planet to prove this statement.

 

[Steven]

Yes. I totally believe the theory of life in another universe. Earth isn't the only planet with life-force. I hope somone is brave enough to go to another planet to prove this statement.

Uh, do you mean in a different solar system? :/

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

I believe that mathematically, it's been essentially proven that other life exists somewhere in the universe, per the Drake Equation:

Basically, using the milky way as a model, we can infer that due to the vastness of the universe, that there are hundreds of thousands of other Galaxies similar enough to ours, and each of those hundred-thousand galaxies has millions of planets, so the odds are astronomically high that extraterrestrial life exists elsewhere in the universe.

As much as I agree with the general assessment, it's a stretch to say that the Drake equation proves the existence of extra-terrestrial life, especially considering that fl, fi, fc and L are essentially guesses. By this equation, there could be any number of potential life-dwelling planets from billions to zero.

However, I do believe that there is SOMETHING out there, but attempts to quantify it, for the most part, rely on spurious extrapolation of variables we have no way of knowing for the time being.