The Possibility of Alien Life Is Now (Almost) Impossible to Deny

[OmegaFenix]

An international team of astronomers have reached the most definitive conclusion, one with profound implications: our galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets. Of those, most are small planets like ours. Statistically, every star would have at least one planet.This means that the chances of life and habitable planets in our galaxy alone is overwhelmingly high. So high that it's impossible to deny that it's out there. The only question is how much of that is little dumb critters* and how much is civilized.
According to Stephen Kane—at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at CalTech in Pasadena and one of the authors of the study—"not only are planets common in the galaxy, but there are more small planetsthan large ones. This is encouraging news for investigations into habitable planets."
Kane is being too conservative when he says that this is "encouraging news". This is amazingly great news! The number of Earth-like planets is much higher than Jupiter-sized giants. The rough estimate is that there are at least 10 billion terrestrial planets across our galaxy alone.
That is a mind-blowing number.
Couple this number with the latest calculations that have extended the goldilocks zone, the area where life could happen around stars. And then add the fact that life happens spontaneously, even underthe most extreme conditions, and the idea of a Milky Way thriving with life is impossible to deny.
There's no doubt that, statistically, there's life out there (and let's not even talk about the other 500 billion galaxies in the Universe).
Intelligent civilizations

Of course, how much of this life is smart enough to build computers, communication dishes or Imperial Star Destroyers is another matter altogether. As far as we know, all those habitable worlds may be full of killer snails and dozy fish
But the fact remains that, until now, we could only guess much of this stuff. Now we know. That makes a big difference.
The fact that there are at least 100 billion planets in our Milky Way alone has profound implications for our understanding of the Universe. These discoveries, made using Hubble and Kepler, are finally putting some real numbers in the Drake Equation.

The equation—created by Frank Drake, Emeritus Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz—is used to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy.
Now we are starting to replace the guesses with solid information and things couldn't look better. Soon it will not be "we want to believe" but "we know." [Hubble]
* Some may argue that advanced alien civilizations would see us as little dumb critters, rather than a civilization.

Source: i09

And we just decommissioned our main space vehicle.

I say screw all the starving people of the world & everybody recovering from some natural disaster. Donate your £5 a month to Space Exploration instead.

 

[Tsar]

Source: i09

And we just decommissioned our main space vehicle.

I say screw all the starving people of the world & everybody recovering from some natural disaster. Donate your £5 a month to Space Exploration instead.

Dude I agree screw starving people. giving them food is not going to help them anyway.
Now space exploration now that is something I would donate to.

 

[Xero]

Exciting times for Humans as a species, marred by the comments from the two of you

 

[Venom]

I say screw that let the aliens come to us , as the ,mericans say "we aint no body'''s Bitch" let em do the hard work, there are plenty things I don't like right here no need to go find more ............

On a more serious note , this was a given and 100 billion planets is too round a number and its still to guess worky logic would
give you the same result , this is no major find its is just sciences way of saying we hooked up 10 PS3's to count the stars there are a lot so chance's are there is life else where . In this day and age given the vastness of the Universe who could possibly believe that life only exists here.

 

[Graal]

While I find it hard to believe that we're the only life in the universe, the fact that there are so many stars out there doesn't change much. Either there is life, or there isn't. The amount of stars in our universe doesn't matter at all.

 

[OmegaFenix]

@ Zero: Planet is over populated as it is. Since its illegal to cull the heard all we are left with is some Darwinian justice. Nature is cruel and unforgiving, by defying that fact humanity has devolved into the cancer it now is.

I say screw that let the aliens come to us , as the ,mericans say "we aint no body'''s Bitch" let em do the hard work, there are plenty things I don't like right here no need to go find more ............

Id rather be the Spanish than the Native Americans in this story...

 

[Venom]

While I find it hard to believe that we're the only life in the universe, the fact that there are so many stars out there doesn't change much. Either there is life, or there isn't. The amount of stars in our universe doesn't matter at all.

actually it does , for life to exist there needs to be a habitable planet and those , have to revolve around stars the more stars the more chances of life , of the 100 billion in our galaxy 10 billion could support life , if even 1 % of these stars (that's

one hundred million) support life then we have cousins out there.
Bear in mind that's one hundred million stars at a minimum , that could have 1 or 2 planets that will have life
At the very least that's one hundred million planets that may have life
Even if we reduce this to 1 million from the Hundred million
that's 1 million that can support life , yeah I would say

The chances are good for alien life and I didn't need 20 million dollar grant to come up with that .
But yeah the number of star's is needed to help put things in perspective.

@ Zero: Planet is over populated as it is. Since its illegal to cull the heard all we are left with is some Darwinian justice. Nature is cruel and unforgiving, by defying that fact humanity has devolved into the cancer it now is.



Id rather be the Spanish than the Native Americans in this story...

Good point​

 

[DenSweeP]

@ Zero: Planet is over populated as it is. Since its illegal to cull the heard all we are left with is some Darwinian justice. Nature is cruel and unforgiving, by defying that fact humanity has devolved into the cancer it now is.



Id rather be the Spanish than the Native Americans in this story...

And who decides who starves and who dies? Please, keep your immature and ignorant comments to yourself. Nobody cares.

 

[Tsar]

Exciting times for Humans as a species, marred by the comments from the two of you

Sigh I regret my comment was not thinking. It was a hateful comment on my part.
I can't decide who lives and dies. Sorry mygaming.

I just get so excited about space exploration.

@den the governments decide who starve and who dies.

 

[OmegaFenix]

And who decides who starves and who dies? Please, keep your immature and ignorant comments to yourself. Nobody cares.

I fail to see what was immature or ignorant in that comment. I do not regret, nor will I apologies for my views.

I think its time I put my Misanthropy definition back in my signature so people can stop being surprised when I speak my mind.

 

[Zomosa]

Take me away!

hehehe

 

[hideinlight]

There's more than enough species on earth to explore. Doubt aliens would be as cool as ET anyways.

 

[Avatar]

I fail to see what was immature or ignorant in that comment. I do not regret, nor will I apologies for my views.

Out of interest, what would your criteria for "being culled" be?

While I find it hard to believe that we're the only life in the universe, the fact that there are so many stars out there doesn't change much. Either there is life, or there isn't. The amount of stars in our universe doesn't matter at all.

It matter in the prediction of life out there, not if there actually is anything.

We can only estimate the odds of alien life existing, as a fraction of 1, with 0 being no alien life and 1 meaning that alien life does exist. We all know that the truth is either 0 or 1, but we can't say for certain which it is yet.. so we estimate. One of the factors in the estimation is the number of planets in existence, which then changes our current estimate, pushing it slightly towards the 1 side of the scale.

 

[OmegaFenix]

Out of interest, what would your criteria for "being culled" be?



It matter in the prediction of life out there, not if there actually is anything.

We can only estimate the odds of alien life existing, as a fraction of 1, with 0 being no alien life and 1 meaning that alien life does exist. We all know that the truth is either 0 or 1, but we can't say for certain which it is yet.. so we estimate. One of the factors in the estimation is the number of planets in existence, which then changes our current estimate, pushing it slightly towards the 1 side of the scale.

I would be the WORST person to make up the criteria for that. Also it is illegal, a fact which will never change And nobody should have that on their shoulders. I am rather for nature taking its course.

I think the question of extraterrestrial life is a classic schrodinger's cat Paradox. Since we can't prove or disprove that life exist, there for extraterrestrial life both exist and don't exist at the same time.

 

[Dan]

Sure other intelligent life is a possibility, but the human race will be long gone by the time any of it crosses our path.

Forget space exploration: donate your money to the SPCA.

 

[Avatar]

I think the question of extraterrestrial life is a classic schrodinger's cat Paradox. Since we can't prove or disprove that life exist, there for extraterrestrial life both exist and don't exist at the same time.

That's exactly why we work with the statistical nature of the matter, rather with black and white terminology. For now it'll have to do, until we have proof one way or the other, exactly Shrodinger's cat, like you said.

 

[Venom]

Like I said with odds that big , how can there not be
Re read my post , the math speaks for it self . BTW we have found fossilized microbes out there which technically is other life

 

[TBlaar]

I doubt that if aliens travel thousands of lightyears to get to earth, that it would be to say hello. They would:
1. Be here to let us know they are what people believe to be "God", and they created us or changed our DNA to become more like them (in their image).
2. to annihilate us because their planet is also fragile, like ours, and has reached end of life.

I hope that 1 happens...

 

[OmegaFenix]

I doubt that if aliens travel thousands of lightyears to get to earth, that it would be to say hello. They would:
1. Be here to let us know they are what people believe to be "God", and they created us or changed our DNA to become more like them (in their image).
2. to annihilate us because their planet is also fragile, like ours, and has reached en of life.

I hope that 1 happens...

I tend to lean towards the second option. Ever considered the reason we haven't picked up any other signals is that nobody signals their location in a forest full of wolves? Yet humanity has bean broadcasting our presence for decades, hence my comments of rather being the Spanish than the native americans in this story.

Best we can hope for.... whichever species first comes/ has come to investigate this noisy little blue marble has something akin to the Federation's Prime Directive "The Prime Directive dictates that there can be no interference with the internal development of alien civilizations."/ "No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations."

 

[TBlaar]

I tend to lean towards the second option. Ever considered the reason we haven't picked up any other signals is that nobody signals their location in a forest full of wolves?

Yes! And maybe they do, but in different types of signals that we cannot comprehend.

People seem to always think that aliens will be humanoid, also carbon based and cannot live on other planets due to not having air... That is earth people, the possibilities of what other creatures may be like, look like or be made of is limitless. We may just encounter creatures who are not creatures at all, and don't travel like we do.

Have you heard about or seen the Mexican jellyfish-like biological ufo/alien sightings? Check this out... just made me think differently on what could be out there: