First direct image of extrasolar planet.

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Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Originally posted by: sandorski
Originally posted by: hellokeith
Originally posted by: jpeyton
Originally posted by: Pocatello
Indeed. But no matter how different life maybe, the right conditions still have to be met to sustain it. When I say rare, I don't mean to say "Earth is the only one".
The known universe is so large that there could *realistically* be hundreds of millions of life-bearing planets, many unknown or undetectable to each other.

As suggested earlier, you may *think* you understand large number theory, but you probably don't. We're talking about immeasurable amounts of distance *and* time.

Why is time important? Humans are the only highly intelligent life forms on our planet, and we've only been around in total for 200,000 years (equivalent to a cosmic speck of dust in a galaxy of time).

We've only been transmitting radio waves (something that could be detectable by other intelligent life through space) for less than 100 years. And we've only been searching the stars for signals for a few decades.

What if a planet 100 light years away produced a highly intelligent life form 1 billion years ago. After 200,000 years of evolution, and only a few thousand years of civilization, the entire population died off of ______ (war, disease, catastrophic extinction level event, lack of resources, etc.). And maybe in another galaxy, on another planet, a different highly intelligent life form only got to the beginnings of civilization before they were destroyed. And how long will humans on our planet last? What if a meteor hits our planet and kills us all 100 years before an alien species looks in our direction?

The chances of life, even intelligent life, to develop in our universe is incredibly large. The chances of a life form to become intelligent enough to detect other life is small, and the chances of actually detecting other life is even smaller. We would have to hit the cosmic jackpot to be in both the right place and time to detect other intelligent life, at least at our current stage of evolution.

If our species survives and progresses technologically for another 100,000 years, we might produce the technology needed to explore the vastness of our universe with a high enough level of efficiency to increase our chances of detecting other life.

It sounds weird, but it is wholly possible for another intelligent life form on another planet on the other side of the universe to be having this exact same conversation that we're having right now. And we may never know of their existence.

The simple truth is that there exists no piece of evidence for extraterrestrial life, and certainly not intelligent at that.

After 14 billion years (current estimate of age of the universe):

* no ancient ET probes in space
* no ancient ET artifacts on earth
* no ancient ET skeletons on earth
* no ancient structures nor carvings on earth of ET design (except for perhaps the first Great Pyramid of Giza and the terrain designs in South America)
* none of the above observed on any planetary body in our solar system
* no galactic empire (14 billion years is certainly enough time)
* no extraterrestrial communication
* no organized EMR of any kind

Math and statistics cannot provide any remote form of accuracy when no scientific evidence exists. Extra Terrestrial Intelligence is akin to mythology, if you want to believe it, more power to you, but there is no evidence of it whatsoever.

You have no concept how vast the Universe is or how Improbable what you demand as Evidence could even be found by us if it happened to exist.


yes someone needs to watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
I used to think that the sheer amount of stars and depthness of the universe would make certain that the chances of finding life on another planet is obvious.

However, I think the chance of finding another "earth" is slim to none.

When I say earth, I mean, a planet we could drop a human on and they couldn't tell it wasn't earth.

I did some research on the idea, and I was led to a documentary called "The Priveledged Planet"

While it didn't argue the idea of intelligent ET, it did argue the probability of finding another earth.

Basically, if you take into account all of the variables involved with making earth the way it is (moon in orbit, distance from sun, magnetic core, ozone, etc) the math is actually 1000 times deeper than the odds of finding another earth (given amount of stars, etc).

What it did say is that, especially considering planetary bodies like TITAN, which is built around methane, ET may exist on planets like that. It's built on an element that can survive at a different distance from the sun, under different environmental extremes, etc.

So I believe there is ET out there, but the chance that they look like humans is squat, and the chance that they could just drop into earth and survive the elements is squat.
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
I used to think that the sheer amount of stars and depthness of the universe would make certain that the chances of finding life on another planet is obvious.

However, I think the chance of finding another "earth" is slim to none.

When I say earth, I mean, a planet we could drop a human on and they couldn't tell it wasn't earth.

I did some research on the idea, and I was led to a documentary called "The Priveledged Planet"

While it didn't argue the idea of intelligent ET, it did argue the probability of finding another earth.

Basically, if you take into account all of the variables involved with making earth the way it is (moon in orbit, distance from sun, magnetic core, ozone, etc) the math is actually 1000 times deeper than the odds of finding another earth (given amount of stars, etc).

What it did say is that, especially considering planetary bodies like TITAN, which is built around methane, ET may exist on planets like that. It's built on an element that can survive at a different distance from the sun, under different environmental extremes, etc.

So I believe there is ET out there, but the chance that they look like humans is squat, and the chance that they could just drop into earth and survive the elements is squat.

You mean Captain Kirk wandering outer space in his spaceship, landing on alien planets with hot women so he can get in fist fights with a man sized rubber looking lizard man isn't going to happen? :(
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
My personal belief is that there are forms of communication out there that we simply aren't privy too. Our technology is too backwards to recognize that it's there. That's just my personal belief though; in the same way some people say they are certain that there is a deity out there, I believe in other planets having intelligent life that are waiting for humanity to mature. I have had dreams before of visiting other planets with life on them, but when I awoke the rational part of my brain had too hard of a time comprehending what I saw, and due to the nature of the things I experienced there really wasn't a way I could communicate what I experienced using our current system of language.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
Originally posted by: Juddog
Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
I used to think that the sheer amount of stars and depthness of the universe would make certain that the chances of finding life on another planet is obvious.

However, I think the chance of finding another "earth" is slim to none.

When I say earth, I mean, a planet we could drop a human on and they couldn't tell it wasn't earth.

I did some research on the idea, and I was led to a documentary called "The Priveledged Planet"

While it didn't argue the idea of intelligent ET, it did argue the probability of finding another earth.

Basically, if you take into account all of the variables involved with making earth the way it is (moon in orbit, distance from sun, magnetic core, ozone, etc) the math is actually 1000 times deeper than the odds of finding another earth (given amount of stars, etc).

What it did say is that, especially considering planetary bodies like TITAN, which is built around methane, ET may exist on planets like that. It's built on an element that can survive at a different distance from the sun, under different environmental extremes, etc.

So I believe there is ET out there, but the chance that they look like humans is squat, and the chance that they could just drop into earth and survive the elements is squat.

You mean Captain Kirk wandering outer space in his spaceship, landing on alien planets with hot women so he can get in fist fights with a man sized rubber looking lizard man isn't going to happen? :(

As firmly as I believe in ET and intelligent life out there, I don't think this scenario is going to happen. Of the billions of factors that it takes to make Earth "earth" just one thing being absent could make the environment toxic.

google the movie "The Priveledged Planet"

It changed the way I think about it...

 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
Originally posted by: Juddog
Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
I used to think that the sheer amount of stars and depthness of the universe would make certain that the chances of finding life on another planet is obvious.

However, I think the chance of finding another "earth" is slim to none.

When I say earth, I mean, a planet we could drop a human on and they couldn't tell it wasn't earth.

I did some research on the idea, and I was led to a documentary called "The Priveledged Planet"

While it didn't argue the idea of intelligent ET, it did argue the probability of finding another earth.

Basically, if you take into account all of the variables involved with making earth the way it is (moon in orbit, distance from sun, magnetic core, ozone, etc) the math is actually 1000 times deeper than the odds of finding another earth (given amount of stars, etc).

What it did say is that, especially considering planetary bodies like TITAN, which is built around methane, ET may exist on planets like that. It's built on an element that can survive at a different distance from the sun, under different environmental extremes, etc.

So I believe there is ET out there, but the chance that they look like humans is squat, and the chance that they could just drop into earth and survive the elements is squat.

You mean Captain Kirk wandering outer space in his spaceship, landing on alien planets with hot women so he can get in fist fights with a man sized rubber looking lizard man isn't going to happen? :(

As firmly as I believe in ET and intelligent life out there, I don't think this scenario is going to happen. Of the billions of factors that it takes to make Earth "earth" just one thing being absent could make the environment toxic.

google the movie "The Priveledged Planet"

It changed the way I think about it...

I was being facetious.:D
 

biggestmuff

Diamond Member
Mar 20, 2001
8,201
2
0
Originally posted by: vital
hey I don't get it.. if our telescopes can capture images of planets 500-light years away... why can't they have satellite views like google map for all the planets in our solar system?

Oh, you mean like this and this?

;)
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,779
6,339
126

Cuda1447

Lifer
Jul 26, 2002
11,757
0
71
Originally posted by: Juddog
My personal belief is that there are forms of communication out there that we simply aren't privy too. Our technology is too backwards to recognize that it's there. That's just my personal belief though; in the same way some people say they are certain that there is a deity out there, I believe in other planets having intelligent life that are waiting for humanity to mature. I have had dreams before of visiting other planets with life on them, but when I awoke the rational part of my brain had too hard of a time comprehending what I saw, and due to the nature of the things I experienced there really wasn't a way I could communicate what I experienced using our current system of language.


LOL. How can someone take this post seriously?


Its fine to believe that there isn't a different type of communication we aren't privy to. Hell, even comparing it to a belief in a deity is fine. But to go on and say you had 'dreams' of things that your human brain can't rationalize and you don't have the language to explain the things that were in your head? ROFL. Where do you think you get the ideas that are in your head? From things you have experienced/thought about on Earth? Human ideas/thoughts. Lay off the crack son.
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
Originally posted by: Juddog
You mean Captain Kirk wandering outer space in his spaceship, landing on alien planets with hot women so he can get in fist fights with a man sized rubber looking lizard man isn't going to happen? :(
But I did make it with a hot alien babe. And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since he first looked up at the stars?






Kif, I'm asking you a question!


Originally posted by: waggy

whenever i watch that (or something like it) it amazes me every time. Its kinda shocking that people have no clue just how big space is. how many universes, and systems are out there.

then they say oh they can't have life. if they did they would have contacted us by now! ugh
Hah, yeah. Because we're so goddamned important. ;)
I love that egocentric view.
With all of our radio waves going out into space, maybe we're the rude, mentally deficient idiot of the local stellar cluster, the moron who just won't shut up, but everyone else is too polite to whack him on the head and tell him to shut up.



Hubble Ultra-Deep Field.

Look up at the full moon. Imagine an area 1/10th that width. Now shove the HUDF image into that tiny region. There's about 10,000 galaxies in that much area. Extrapolate that around the entire sky, 360° x 360°. Anyone can think of that, and seriously say we're the only living things in existence?


Finding another "Earth" - sure, the chances of that are fairly small. Finding something fairly similar, that's much more likely. You're not likely to find another planet with the dimensions of ours, orbiting a star with a spectral response similar to ours, similar atmosphere, similar microbial life, similar oceans, similar magnetic field, etc etc. Maybe it'll be covered entirely in water. Maybe the water will be underground. Maybe another solvent entirely will be present.
We only look for something "like" Earth because we have this as the baseline. We know what Earth-based life looks like. It's tough to look for something specific when you don't know where it is, nor what it looks like. You can look right at it, but not know that it's what you're looking for.


Planetary "maps"
More


In other news, Cassini passed just 30 miles above the surface of Enceladus, at 40,000 mph.

"Two more Enceladus flybys are planned for October. The first of those will cut Monday?s flyby distance in half and bring the spacecraft to a remarkable 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the surface. Enceladus measures about 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter -- just one-seventh the diameter of Earth's moon."

 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: Cuda1447
Originally posted by: Juddog
My personal belief is that there are forms of communication out there that we simply aren't privy too. Our technology is too backwards to recognize that it's there. That's just my personal belief though; in the same way some people say they are certain that there is a deity out there, I believe in other planets having intelligent life that are waiting for humanity to mature. I have had dreams before of visiting other planets with life on them, but when I awoke the rational part of my brain had too hard of a time comprehending what I saw, and due to the nature of the things I experienced there really wasn't a way I could communicate what I experienced using our current system of language.


LOL. How can someone take this post seriously?


Its fine to believe that there isn't a different type of communication we aren't privy to. Hell, even comparing it to a belief in a deity is fine. But to go on and say you had 'dreams' of things that your human brain can't rationalize and you don't have the language to explain the things that were in your head? ROFL. Where do you think you get the ideas that are in your head? From things you have experienced/thought about on Earth? Human ideas/thoughts. Lay off the crack son.

No crack involved, and the dream made a lot more sense than a zombie rising from the dead that was the son of an invisible being that watches everything you do and communicates telepathically (e.g. religion). The ideas in my head were processed by my subconscious and unconscious mind; my rational every day thinking part of my psyche wasn't able to process the dream in it's full due to the things that I was taught growing up.

The things I experienced in the dream I have no way of explaining using the English language were very vivid to me. Like I said, it's only a belief, and the dream happened despite me being a very scientific minded person. I don't expect you to be able to understand it, and essentially your response shows why in general humans aren't ready to be dealing with what I saw in my dream that night.

--edit-- Perhaps you don't understand about concepts such as Ego Death, so based upon your response I'm guessing you feel the Ego is probably all there is. Thus it wouldn't make sense to you that part of your mind could exist outside of what you ordinarily think of as yourself. If you haven't ever had a Lucid Dream, then I wouldn't expect you to understand.

Let me put it to you this way: after studying lucid dreaming and practicing it for years, I have been able to enter a deeper state of my mind than what I previously thought was possible. Given your negative reaction I fully expect you to insult me again or something along those lines, but the human brain is capable of far more than you can comprehend, and the waking aspect of the brain is only a fragment of the mind's potential.
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: KIRBYEE
Originally posted by: hellokeith
Math and statistics cannot provide any remote form of accuracy when no scientific evidence exists. Extra Terrestrial Intelligence is akin to mythology, if you want to believe it, more power to you, but there is no evidence of it whatsoever.

We're insignificant pieces of shit without a meaning.

Right-o.

Now expand that view to the 125 billion estimated galaxies that has been estimated since Hubble has been put up in orbit.
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
Originally posted by: Juddog
My personal belief is that there are forms of communication out there that we simply aren't privy too. Our technology is too backwards to recognize that it's there. That's just my personal belief though; in the same way some people say they are certain that there is a deity out there, I believe in other planets having intelligent life that are waiting for humanity to mature. I have had dreams before of visiting other planets with life on them, but when I awoke the rational part of my brain had too hard of a time comprehending what I saw, and due to the nature of the things I experienced there really wasn't a way I could communicate what I experienced using our current system of language.
Kind of like if we were to talk to an ant. It might hear the sound, but it wouldn't be interpreted as a means of communication. Similarly, I could shine a light on an ant, and do so in Morse Code. Again, it wouldn't have the capability of perceiving it as communication.
There may be life forms out there that are to us as we are to insects. We wouldn't even qualify as "intelligent" to them. We'd just be doing what we perceive ants to do: Serving our basic instinctual needs. And indeed, a lot of what we do is to these ends. Cellphones enhance our ability to socialize. So does ATOT. Computers can be used for porn -> satisfy mating instinct. Some forms of government are simply ways of asserting dominance, and claiming territory, just as insects do in their own way. We fight over various resources, as ants do.

I wouldn't say that these planets have life that is "waiting" for humanity to mature. Observing it, perhaps, as we might look at a wasp nest. Or else they'd be completely indifferent to us, since we'd be regarded simply as a part of the rest of the planet's ecosystem, and nothing more.

And your later post touched on another issue inherent to language itself; Orwell addressed it in "Nineteen Eighty-Four," that language is a way of not only organizing thought, but also a way of limiting it. If your language's vocabulary has no way of quantifying a certain concept, you have no good way of retaining the information long-term, or at least no way of doing so efficiently. If I say, "A red computer," you can recall certain imagery to have an idea of what I'm talking about. But if I would say "red" to someone who was blind from birth, it's a meaningless word. "Color" is a meaningless word. It's simply not within that person's realm of perception, not within their working vocabulary.

In the book, Orwell talked about eliminating words so that it was impossible to think about doing something anti-government. You couldn't tell someone to "rebel" because knowledge of such a concept would not exist.



Originally posted by: PlasmaBomb
Originally posted by: Anubis

yes someone needs to watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

Nice find... how is the universe 78 billion light years across?

That's going to be some hell of a speeding ticket...
It's weird, but as I understand it, the eruption from the Big Bang singularity was one of spacetime and energy. I think that the shock wave of the spacetime bubble can move faster than light, though that might not exactly be an accurate way of putting it, since velocity is itself dependent on some measurement of time. How do you measure the velocity (distance per time) of time?
If I had a Ph.D in theoretical astrophysics, maybe I would have a better answer. ;)

 

SagaLore

Elite Member
Dec 18, 2001
24,036
21
81
Originally posted by: JohnCU
we're so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

/deep

I disagree.

We're observers of a vast expanse of matter and energy. We seek knowledge, to better understand it all. I think that makes us very important.
 

Kev

Lifer
Dec 17, 2001
16,367
4
81
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Originally posted by: hellokeith
The simple truth is that there exists no piece of evidence for extraterrestrial life, and certainly not intelligent at that.

After 14 billion years (current estimate of age of the universe):

* no ancient ET probes in space
* no ancient ET artifacts on earth
* no ancient ET skeletons on earth
* no ancient structures nor carvings on earth of ET design (except for perhaps the first Great Pyramid of Giza and the terrain designs in South America)
* none of the above observed on any planetary body in our solar system
* no galactic empire (14 billion years is certainly enough time)
* no extraterrestrial communication
* no organized EMR of any kind

Math and statistics cannot provide any remote form of accuracy when no scientific evidence exists. Extra Terrestrial Intelligence is akin to mythology, if you want to believe it, more power to you, but there is no evidence of it whatsoever.
14 billion years? There may have been loads of "evidence" during that time.
The problem is, we've had the ability to make some sort of direct record of our history for what, a few hundred thousand years? A vast majority of any records made during that time would be woefully inaccurate anyway. And our ability to detect EM radiation from distant places came up in the past hundred years or so. We've had our eyes open to the Universe for a fraction of a blink, and since we didn't see anything alive in that tiny amount of time, we figure, "Oh well, there must be nothing there."
It's also possible that Earth simply hasn't appeared to be all that interesting. Our EM chatter, leaking out into space, only started in the modern technological era. We may simply have appeared to be a tiny planet, with a strong spectral reading which hinted at the presence of a lot of water. Yeah well, water, no big deal. Lots of places have it in some quantity. Catalog the planet, and move on to the next one.

You mention our planetary system - maybe there's life under the icy crust of Europa, in the vast sub-surface ocean theorized to be there. They could wonder just as easily why there's no life anywhere else, and yet, here it is, right in their own solar system. Why hasn't it contacted them yet, and left structures, artifacts, or skeletons on their world?
We've had space flight for less than 100 years, out of the solar system's 4.6 billion years of age.


Given the sheer numbers of stars and planets in existence, I think it is far more improbable that we are the only place with life. Unfortunately, we've barely even gained the ability to crawl with respect to venturing from our birthplace. It's likely going to be more than a century before we start to take our first true steps, and venture out of this solar system.



Sorry if that seemed rambling or anything, I'm kind of low on sleep this week. Some engineering students naturally have the necessary ability to sleep for less than 20 minutes a week. I have yet to hone my skills in this respect.

In other words, there is no evidence for it whatsoever?
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
Originally posted by: SagaLore
Originally posted by: JohnCU
we're so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

/deep

I disagree.

We're observers of a vast expanse of matter and energy. We seek knowledge, to better understand it all. I think that makes us very important.


Watch the priveledged planet that i linked to earlier in this thread. Its a compliment to your statement. That the Earth is setup for scientific discovery, and the fact that we evolved on a planet the way we did to be able to observe is quite extraordinary.
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Originally posted by: Juddog
My personal belief is that there are forms of communication out there that we simply aren't privy too. Our technology is too backwards to recognize that it's there. That's just my personal belief though; in the same way some people say they are certain that there is a deity out there, I believe in other planets having intelligent life that are waiting for humanity to mature. I have had dreams before of visiting other planets with life on them, but when I awoke the rational part of my brain had too hard of a time comprehending what I saw, and due to the nature of the things I experienced there really wasn't a way I could communicate what I experienced using our current system of language.
Kind of like if we were to talk to an ant. It might hear the sound, but it wouldn't be interpreted as a means of communication. Similarly, I could shine a light on an ant, and do so in Morse Code. Again, it wouldn't have the capability of perceiving it as communication.
There may be life forms out there that are to us as we are to insects. We wouldn't even qualify as "intelligent" to them. We'd just be doing what we perceive ants to do: Serving our basic instinctual needs. And indeed, a lot of what we do is to these ends. Cellphones enhance our ability to socialize. So does ATOT. Computers can be used for porn -> satisfy mating instinct. Some forms of government are simply ways of asserting dominance, and claiming territory, just as insects do in their own way. We fight over various resources, as ants do.

I wouldn't say that these planets have life that is "waiting" for humanity to mature. Observing it, perhaps, as we might look at a wasp nest. Or else they'd be completely indifferent to us, since we'd be regarded simply as a part of the rest of the planet's ecosystem, and nothing more.

And your later post touched on another issue inherent to language itself; Orwell addressed it in "Nineteen Eighty-Four," that language is a way of not only organizing thought, but also a way of limiting it. If your language's vocabulary has no way of quantifying a certain concept, you have no good way of retaining the information long-term, or at least no way of doing so efficiently. If I say, "A red computer," you can recall certain imagery to have an idea of what I'm talking about. But if I would say "red" to someone who was blind from birth, it's a meaningless word. "Color" is a meaningless word. It's simply not within that person's realm of perception, not within their working vocabulary.

In the book, Orwell talked about eliminating words so that it was impossible to think about doing something anti-government. You couldn't tell someone to "rebel" because knowledge of such a concept would not exist.



Originally posted by: PlasmaBomb
Originally posted by: Anubis

yes someone needs to watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

Nice find... how is the universe 78 billion light years across?

That's going to be some hell of a speeding ticket...
It's weird, but as I understand it, the eruption from the Big Bang singularity was one of spacetime and energy. I think that the shock wave of the spacetime bubble can move faster than light, though that might not exactly be an accurate way of putting it, since velocity is itself dependent on some measurement of time. How do you measure the velocity (distance per time) of time?
If I had a Ph.D in theoretical astrophysics, maybe I would have a better answer. ;)

^^ Exactly, you understand perfectly what I mean. The things I experienced as part of the dream were done so with senses that I don't normally posses as a human. Trying to explain it in terms of human senses is akin to trying to smell a flower with your ear.

Given that I am a fully logic driven person in day to day life (work on computers all day, come home and get on the computer, always on the laptop or mobile device when away from my main computers), and every psychological profile I have been given in different companies indicate that am chiefly an analytical type personality above all, this caused the dream to not click right with the rational part of my brain.

That's the only way I can think to describe it. I have images in my head of the dream, as it was a lucid dream and it was completely clear at the time. Basically in the dream my senses were more acute than they would be as a regular person. It's easily explainable in terms of computers: Say for example your regular vision was 800 dpi (this is just an example, not the actual dpi that your eye would read), within this dream my vision would be the equivalent to 800,000 dpi. It would be the difference between say an old school dot matrix printer from 1980 versus a high end laser printer in 2008. I was able to see and experience life on another planet within the dream, but when I awoke it was akin to data overload - the computer equivalent of pushing down a gigabit signal through a 14.4kbps modem.
 

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
Aug 23, 2003
25,375
142
116
Originally posted by: Kev
In other words, there is no evidence for it whatsoever?
There's plenty of evidence...that we're currently not capable of detecting life in our universe if it did exist.

It's like dropping a penny in the Sahara, then handing a newborn a metal detector and sending them off to go find it.
 

SphinxnihpS

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2005
8,368
25
91
Originally posted by: Jeff7
:thumbsup:

Impressive. :)

That's still ridiculously far from its parent start. That's way farther out than Pluto is from our Sun.


I feel a bit dirty now, for looking at these voyeurish pictures of a young, hot, naked planet.

6 times further at Pluto's maximum orbital distance from the sun, so yes, very very far. But the star is only millions of years old. In several billion years the planet should "fall" towards its star, no?
 
Dec 26, 2007
11,782
2
76
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Originally posted by: hellokeith
The simple truth is that there exists no piece of evidence for extraterrestrial life, and certainly not intelligent at that.

After 14 billion years (current estimate of age of the universe):

* no ancient ET probes in space
* no ancient ET artifacts on earth
* no ancient ET skeletons on earth
* no ancient structures nor carvings on earth of ET design (except for perhaps the first Great Pyramid of Giza and the terrain designs in South America)
* none of the above observed on any planetary body in our solar system
* no galactic empire (14 billion years is certainly enough time)
* no extraterrestrial communication
* no organized EMR of any kind

Math and statistics cannot provide any remote form of accuracy when no scientific evidence exists. Extra Terrestrial Intelligence is akin to mythology, if you want to believe it, more power to you, but there is no evidence of it whatsoever.
14 billion years? There may have been loads of "evidence" during that time.
The problem is, we've had the ability to make some sort of direct record of our history for what, a few hundred thousand years? A vast majority of any records made during that time would be woefully inaccurate anyway. And our ability to detect EM radiation from distant places came up in the past hundred years or so. We've had our eyes open to the Universe for a fraction of a blink, and since we didn't see anything alive in that tiny amount of time, we figure, "Oh well, there must be nothing there."
It's also possible that Earth simply hasn't appeared to be all that interesting. Our EM chatter, leaking out into space, only started in the modern technological era. We may simply have appeared to be a tiny planet, with a strong spectral reading which hinted at the presence of a lot of water. Yeah well, water, no big deal. Lots of places have it in some quantity. Catalog the planet, and move on to the next one.

You mention our planetary system - maybe there's life under the icy crust of Europa, in the vast sub-surface ocean theorized to be there. They could wonder just as easily why there's no life anywhere else, and yet, here it is, right in their own solar system. Why hasn't it contacted them yet, and left structures, artifacts, or skeletons on their world?
We've had space flight for less than 100 years, out of the solar system's 4.6 billion years of age.


Given the sheer numbers of stars and planets in existence, I think it is far more improbable that we are the only place with life. Unfortunately, we've barely even gained the ability to crawl with respect to venturing from our birthplace. It's likely going to be more than a century before we start to take our first true steps, and venture out of this solar system.



Sorry if that seemed rambling or anything, I'm kind of low on sleep this week. Some engineering students naturally have the necessary ability to sleep for less than 20 minutes a week. I have yet to hone my skills in this respect.

Here is another thought on that HelloKeith. Look at the picture in the OP. Did you notice in the caption the distance that planet is away from that star? Our telescopes simply cannot even SEE an Earth-sized planet as close to the sun as we are.

So lets reverse this up. Say that we are on that planet in the OP (yes I know it's still a hot planet and no life as we know it can exist there blah blah, but this is a hypothetical), with all of our telescopes pointed at our solar system. Say we had "God" come and tell us to look up at this exact spot in the sky and you will see a planet that has life. We couldn't see it. It is not possible for us to observe an Earth sized planet that is that close to a star. We can detect Neptune/Saturn size and larger, but much smaller than that we can't. It's just not possible with current tech.

Okay so we can't directly observe a planet (let alone directly observe life on that planet say something like the ISS), so what about indirect evidence like radio waves? EM waves are say ~100 light years out (since they travel at the speed of light). Unfortunately it dissipates, so to actually GET that distance it would require ~100 billion watts of power (source). Okay so 1 billion watts of power per light year for a meaningful signal to be sent (to keep the math easy). The planet in the OP is over 500 light years, meaning 500 billion watts of energy would be required to send a signal (in all directions, since we wouldn't know where to look) that we on Earth could detect 500 years later. So first off, it took humanity 200,000 years to get to the point they could actually send em waves. Then it would take at least an entire country (but more likely an entire planet) to put forth the effort to send a signal. We haven't even reached a point where we can put aside enough of our differences to work together as a collective species for a project of that magnitude. So we will be conservative and say by the year 2500 we will work together as a species. Assuming we have the tech already, it would take till the year 3000 for that signal to be reached by the planet in the OP. Ready for the kicker? That planet has to be actively listening. So if intelligent life formed on that planet TODAY, it would be 200,000 years before they could detect us. That is a long time for us to still be around especially after we reach a level we have reached currently. So really it's would be like winning the lottery, and to celebrate you go swimming that day get bit by a shark, and on the way to the hospital you get struck by lightning. It's just such a random event that if it ever happened it would be a very very very lucky thing.

Now on to the third most likely way, artifacts/probes/etc. Voyager 1 is ~105 AU out, which means its 1/3000 the way to Alpha Centauri. We have 9 planets in our solar system+many moons. Assuming the planet in the OP sent something to our solar system long enough ago to have reached us, what are the odds of finding a 100 meter object (thats one big ass probe btw) in our solar system? If it went into the gas giants, its gone. If it went on an asteroid/comet its unlikely we will find it anytime soon (until we actually start mining them or something). If it landed on an outer moon (like Europa/Ganamede) its unlikely to be seen because look at our planet from space. Can you see a football stadium (which is 200+ meters in length) from orbit? No. Go to Google maps and find a stadium, then zoom out when you start to get to the 2 km scale+ range you can't see it. Yeah finding an artifact is like finding an atom in a haystack.

We simply haven't had enough time to simply hit "payday" in the lottery of finding another intelligent lifeform (unless the government is hiding it from us which is another matter entirely).