The odds of life in the universe seems much greater now than billions of years ago...

This is some food for thought:

We are all, essentially, nothing more than advanced groupings of stardust.

A protostar essentially is a cloud of hydrogen that coalesces into a sphere, that eventually, under pressure from gravity, ignites. This ignition triggers the fusion of hydrogen into helium with the released energy being the visible light, heat, and energy thrown off from the star. This is known as the star's "main sequence."

Eventually, the star will use up all its hydrogen fuel, and attempt to start fusing the helium byproduct of its last cycle. This will only occur if the star has enough mass to generate the proper amounts of internal heat. This cycle of fusing the element produced from the previous cycle only lasts until the star produces iron. When this massive star attempts to fuse iron, the fusion no longer produces energy, it requires it, which causes the instability that triggers a core-collapse super nova.

It is this explosion that forms ALL of the heavier elements in the universe.

In other words, when these giant stars explode, they seed the universe with the elements necessary to generate life.

It is believed that the early universe had a much larger quantity of hyper giant stars; the kind that whose death would ultimately seed the universe with heavier elements necessary for biologic process.

If you think about this process for a minute, it seems logical that the early universe was most likely a lifeless place. After billions of mega-stars began to end their lives in supernovae, perhaps only then were there enough "ingredients" floating about for life to begin.

So perhaps now, more than ever, is the universe essentially "ripe" with the materials to form intelligent life.

[edit on 4-8-2010 by SaosinEngaged]

[edit on 4-8-2010 by SaosinEngaged]

Star and Flag for the good post !

As for life in the universe I look to Carl Sagan or the Movie Contact
in the statement that there are ....170 billion galaxies.

The grand total number of stars was estimated in 2003 at ....

www.space.com...

70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

So just from the fact that a meteorite from mars showed signs of life
I'd say the odds are pretty good for it being out there somewhere else.

news.discovery.com...

With the earth likely being only 4 - 5 billion years old, I'd also say
that some planets out there with life are older than ours.

For transport we went from horse to space shuttle in the lifespan
of just 3 humans.

Imagine a civilization 1 billion years older than us, odds are we cannot.

We look into space with various instruments and think we are
seeing all of it, but I think there is a good chance it goes on forever.

We just do not have instruments that can see that far.

May sound crazy but I think the universe may be infinite.

Hard to grapple with, but I think its possible.

We can only see out to 15 billion light years because that is the
limit of our technology due to interference across the vast distances.

reply to post by Ex_MislTech

We look into space with various instruments and think we are
seeing all of it, but I think there is a good chance it goes on forever.

We just do not have instruments that can see that far.

May sound crazy but I think the universe may be infinite.

Hard to grapple with, but I think its possible.

We can only see out to 15 billion light years because that is the
limit of our technology due to interference across the vast distances.

Couldn't agree more! This is something I've thought myself for many many years now. We stupid humans are too quick and too narcissistic to think we're the cream of the crop in the universe. What we say at any given moment is the infallible truth and a hard cold fact.

Stupid humans!

Now we're learning that the very structure of the universe itself is way older than can be accounted for with the big bang theory. We're seeing clusters and super clusters of galaxies being gravitationally tugged by unseen mass and we can't even account for it at all. We use finite technologies coupled with blatantly erroneous equations and pretend we're the masters of our reality.

There are only two logical conclusions to the question of where it all came from.

Either there is a God, or reality is infinite. Given the illogical redundancy of a deity and the necessity for reality to be created due to complexity, the only real choice is an infinite reality.

Yes folks, our reality is infinite in both size and age, regardless of what your primitive technology and science says. We are not special nor should we pretend to be.

reply to post by Ex_MislTech


Well, we're likely to see much further than ever before when the James Webb space telescope launches in 2014.
James Webb Space Telescope

WHOA, WHOA... let us not forget that we are the ONLY ones in ALL existence, and that everything in existence was created 6000 years ago and that we (men) are made from dirt, and women from our ribs!!

The earth is FLAT and on PILLARS as per the bible, and we are in the CENTER of the universe. DONT try to think DIFFERENTLY, otherwise that TALKING SNAKE will come and snatch your soul to hell!!

Aside from that Bible NONSENSE and its non-thinking followers, how can we NOT BE ALONE??

I cant believe folks in the 21st century are still SCAMMED by ancient cave book writings. Good thing for the folks who arent brainwashed and are making discoveries and progressing towards discovering the truth out there.

What did Carl Sagan say, something along the lines of "The universe is finite without bound". I heart Sagan.

Credit should be given to the molecular clouds that form these stars


We can only see roughly 15 billion years because that is as long as light has been traveling, not necessarily we lack the technology to see past it, even though that might also be the case.


The early universe was almost certainly lifeless. The temperature was extremely hot and atom were starting to form, it took a long time for these sub-atomic particles to start forming atoms and then elements.


Actually the early universe had stars that astronomers refer to as Population ! stars. Now-a-days, the stars we see are Population II & III stars. I think I read an article some time ago saying that they might have found a population 1 star or what was left of it, can't really remember

I think that the odds seem much greater now than then, but in reality the odds have always been heavily in favor of extra solar life - we just didn't know then what we do now...

Which begs the question, "What exactly do we know?" The 'net and MSM sources are so ripe with disinformation, it is more difficult now than ever to separate wheat from chaff. Thierry Speth's Apollo 20 hoax being a good example of just how far one man would go toward convincing people of a fantasy based on fact...using information difficult to ascertain, technology (video) that, when used properly (ahem, floating torso, ahem), could be extremely difficult to debunk. Imagine what amazing slight of hand an entire government agency, with virtually unlimited resources, could pull off with this cutting-edge technology?

NASA/ USAF/JPL, etc. Never a straight answer. Not even a hint at what they really know about ET visits, interaction with pioneer astronauts, reverse engineering, and what is REALLY on the moon. Statements, retraction, clarification, omission, and several other "tions" they have used to confuse, deceive, and in some rare cases, protect. Earth-like vs. Earth-sized. What can we really take away from this recent discovery?

Do I believe ET is out there? Somewhere. Absolutely. Do I believe it any more now than I did when I was 12 or so? Maybe. I just can't logically support it with information from untrustworthy sources, like,..well,..everyone.

reply to post by Cole DeSteele


It's somewhat juvenile, but if you watch "The Universe" series on DVD that's been running for the past few years, you'll notice the attitudes of many of the scientists have begun to shift toward the "likely" possibility of extra-solar life.

It was one of the first "official" things I've watched where legitimate scientists don't sneer at the possibility of life off earth.

And yes, I'm in the same boat as you. I think something's up, but there's too much nonsense from nobody's floating around to really get a firm handle on what's reality and what's lunacy.