The latest on SETI

I read or watch a video on SETI where Frank Drake said his many of the variables that make up the Drake equation are now very well understood than 30 years ago. So now the number being predicted is much more accurate. I just can't find the video or where I read this. In searching, I found this interesting video from Frank Drake:

originally posted by: dfnj2015...where Frank Drake said his many of the variables that make up the Drake equation are now very well understood than 30 years ago...

I agree that we do know much more about how many planets (and moons of gas giants) there are, and how many of them might be potentially habitable to some kind of life. However, these two variables in the Drake equation continue to be wild guesses with not much of anything to back up those wild guesses:

- fl, the fraction of those planets that actually develop life.
- fi, the fraction of planets bearing life on which intelligent and civilized life has developed.

We have only one example of a planet where life developed, and only one example of a place where intelligent and civilized life developed. That's an extremely small sample size for making broad judgements about the likelihood of life developing and become intelligent/civilized.

Definition of Amazed .
Humans are alone in a universe of 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000
planets .

Humans are not along in the Universe .

ether boggles the mind .

More ? The universe goes on forever .
The universe has a end .

Questions to which no matter what the answer would change humans forever .

a reply to: dfnj2015

I watched the show your talking about yesterday. It is a VICE episode called
"Printing Tomorrow & Are We Alone".

originally posted by: midnightstar
Definition of Amazed .
Humans are alone in a universe of 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000
planets .

Humans are not along in the Universe .

ether boggles the mind .

More ? The universe goes on forever .
The universe has a end .

Questions to which no matter what the answer would change humans forever .

While I believe this is true, we have no idea where the closest life is. The universe can have many many many planets with intelligent civilizations (currently **), but the closest one might be half way across the galaxy -- so far away that we may never meet.


** By the way, I'm footnoting "currently" because time is just as much a factor as space is. There might be a lot of planets in the past billion years or so that have had intelliegnt civilizations, but there is no way of knowing how many of those planets have a civilization today.

We modern Humans have only been around as a species for 225,000 years, and have had a civilization for about 20,000 to 50,000 years (depnding on how you define "civilization"). How much longer can our civilization -- or ANY alien civilization -- last? Maybe 2 million years? Maybe 5 million years? Longer? Shorter?

I really don't know, but the dinosaurs died off a very short (in cosmic/planetary scales) 65 million years ago, and in that time at least 20 different planets may have had civilizations that had come and gone, all before we humans ever arose. And there may be many more planets where civilazation is yet to arise, and may only do so after we as a civilization (and maybe a species) are long gone.

So it's not only that an alien civilization needs to exist near enough to us in space for us to ever encounter them (even indirectly), but they need to exist near enough to us in time.

Why are we here...... are we alone
Why are we here...... are we alone
we are here.............. to find others

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

We have at least two planets where life developed.

Mars is another example.

The idea may currently lack scientific consesus, but there are researchers that already believe this to be fact.

I am fully confident that that we will conclusively prove that Mars has/had life, by the time the ExoMars rover lands.

Even looking through Curiosity's image output, I am confident we have images of macrocellular life.

It just isn't being announced, because it is premature. No team wants to publicize that they believe it, and risk being wrong.

I'll gladly eat those words if Exo doesn't find anything within 6 months of landing.

a reply to: midnightstar

"The universe has an end"

That is a speculation, not fact. We can not "prove" it has an end.

At least two potential multiverse classifications indicate a universe without an end.