The thought of TRILLIONS of civilizations out there...

Often times I find myself fathoming of the possibilities of life in the universe. I think about just how many stars there are in our galaxy (about 150 billion) and how there are as many galaxies in the KNOWN universe as there are stars in our galaxy. I find it amazing that there is SO much stuff out there, it is truly amazing.

Just a glance at the hubble ultra deep field tells the story.

www.on.br...

I would insert the image but ats resizes it (It is a HUGE picture, be sure to zoom in once the image fully loads).

Look at that. EVERY ONE OF THOSE DOTS, specks, and twinkles you see in there is a whole galaxy. Just like the milky way. Maybe bigger, maybe smaller. Who knows?

NASA reported that the yellow spiral galaxy towards the bottom right is at least 10 times the size of the milky way. It has challenged all theories of space that we currently have.

NOW THINK ABOUT THIS. That picture, all those dots, galaxies, and whatever else there may be. All of that, fits into the size of a full moon (relative to the earths sky, as we see it.) Everytime you see a full moon, think of that. In that little area of the sky, if you were to zoom in with a super powerful telescope, you would see what you see in that picture.

Now, there is obviously an incomprehendable amount of stars in that picture (there are 10000 galaxies in the picture, each one of them having hundreds of billions of stars...). Lets say that one out of every 100 have an earth like planet orbiting them (I figure thats a reasonable statistic, seeing that we ourselves have already located an earth like planet). Now lets say that 1 our of every 100 earth like planets contain life. THAT RIGHT THERE IS TRILLIONS OF PLANETS WITH LIFE ON THEM.

Imagine, there may be civilizations out there right at this very second in time, minding their own business, carrying out there daily lives, just like us!

To think that some may be millions of years ahead of us, to think that some may be as advanced as humans ourselves. I bet there are billions of civilizations out there with life staring up at the night sky, imagining the possibilities of what is out there.

I no longer use the term "alien". That makes it sounds like all other life is little green men. Im sure that couldnt be further from the truth. If anything, advanced beings would probably look very similar to humans.

Wow, and imagine the technology that civilizations must have that our millions of years, possibly billions ahead of us. We are just now conquering anti-gravity (i am almost for certain most of the flying discs we see in the air are made by us...). They may already have time-travel. Interdimensional travel. EVERYTHING that you can imagine they may have made.

Sometimes I wonder, HOW DID ALL THIS GET HERE. I personally believe in God, but still, I wonder...well I just dont know.

I mean, the universe is so big. And if the big bang theory is correct, how could anything come out of nowhere (anything being that atom sized thing containing everything we know of today).

ALSO, what was there before the big bang??? Humans have a hard time imagining the concept of "nothing". Imagine the universe with nothing in it. THAT IS NOT NOTHING. The universe is something. Take away the universe. What is left? I mean, how can there not be something outside of it. Its hard to imagine the concept for some reason.

All that humans know is "something". What would nothing look like. Well, in my head, it isnt visible, because there is nothing. But then what would the eye see when looking at nothing?

Wow I just wrote a huge wall of text. Sorry, but sometimes I just feel like venting.

If I said this to my friends, they would call me nuts and walk away (im 16 haha you would think im more into stuff like crazy parties).

Godspeed,

King Neptune117

Here's something I watch every once in awhile to remind myself that it's all small stuff.

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan.

It is fascinating to think how many different species of life there are out there. But the truth is we will probably never find out! Our brains can only hold so much information without getting fried.

I hope someday I will get to see what it is like outside of this world, but the reality isn't promising!

Mind boggling stuff. Very well formulated and written. I agree with you and the feelings of awe and the difficulty in grasping concepts like infinity and 'nothing' I share completely. I look up at the sky every night and, although I live in a town (a great one too) I do see some stars and it always puts things in perspective.