To say there nothing else out there is kind of close minded. To look up at all those stars and say there is not another planet like earth is hard to do. There has to be something or somethings on one of those planets circling one of the billions of stars. The weird thing about this topic is the stars we see here on earth are probably not even there today. All we see is light that takes billions of years to reach us. The universe is way too big, for anyone here on Earth, to comprehend. The earth is so small compared to the rest of the Universe or even our galaxy.

lotta stars there. lol. theres gotta be some sort of answers hidden out there somewhere.

[edit on 15-7-2004 by neosnightmare]

sorry. double post

[edit on 15-7-2004 by neosnightmare]

Most of what we see at night without telescopes are stars in our Milky Way. Our galaxy has a diameter of about 100,000 light years and is estimated to contain around 100 billion stars (it is considered a small galaxy..). Currently, there are believed to be about 125 billion galaxies in the observable universe. (It is thought that over 90% of the universe consists of dark matter which we do not see). The farthest we can see is about 15 billion light years (taking us back to the very beginning).

The amount of stars and matter in the universe is the side of reality that gives us hope for there being other life out there...

However, people too often ignore the side fighting against that hope.

1) Blackholes. These monsters gobble up entire star systems when they grow large enough. Long before a star may be pulled in their planets are probably torn apart. Also when a black hole forms or collides with an opposite spinning hole they can send out massive gamma busrt effectivly wiping our entire regions of a gallaxy. These burst would blast off atmospheres from planets if not blast apart the planet as a whole.

2) Space junk. We are 2/3rd the way out from the center of the milky way. Stars and gasses and everything else are spread out enough that we don't go slamming into other stars or gas clouds. The closer you get to a gllactic center the more likely you'd lose your star or planet to a collision.

3) Life's delicate balance. To date no other life has been found in our solar system despite planets that have/had water (Mars) or large amount of organics and radiation shielding (Venus). Life as we know it needs not only water, organic compounds, and radiation shielding, but the right amounts of it. You also need a planet that evolves in the correct fashion to allow life to adapt.

4) Distance and Time. Assuming intelligent life is out there and light is indeed a speed limit, traveling or even communicating would take millions of years depending on the distance. Also you'd have to account for Time... out of the last 15 billion years of existance (15,000,000,000) humans have been space bound for about 50 years. Should a species develope to our level or higher they must do it fast enough to avoid inevitable things like asteroid impacts and other extinction events. And they must do it at about the same time we do. And then both of us need to stick arounf for millions of years running around looking for eachother.

5) Finding one another. The size of the universe is not only hope for other life, but the reasons we may never find it. The universe is HUGE and even if you were buzzing around on ships the size of earth itself its like trying to spot a single atom on the surface of the sun. If you spent millions of years going star to star at teh same time as another species you'd statisticly stand almost no chance of ever being near enough to spot eachother, unless of course you bumped into a stationary home world.

So while there is a lot of hope that there is other life...there is very little hope we'll find it. The irony.

The only way to hope to come across other life is if the universe is teaming with it.... but since our own solar system seems to have problems supporting life off of earth...the chances are the universe is not packed to the brim with life.

Nonetheless....we could get lucky...or "they" could get lucky. If they exist.

Very good point Quest!

I didn't think of that...lol...but then, I've always seen everything as an equal balance, and so, isn't it possible, to have an equal amount of destructive forces as there is an equal amount of life etc?

Well, just a thought.

Love and Light
Sky

I love the sand/star comparison, its a nice way to visualize something that is difficult to comprehend.

When you look at a dark sky, on a clear, moonless night; all the stars in the sky number perhaps 5000 stars at any given time. This is about the number of grains of sand in a small handful of sand. But, the number of stars in the visible universe is greater than the number of all the grains of sand on all the beaches on the face of the planet Earth.

The family of stars in which our Sun belongs is the Milky Way galaxy. The number of stars in our galaxy alone is equal to about the number of grains of sand in two large dump trucks. There are perhaps 100 billion galaxies in our universe.

We are talking about stars (suns); now consider how many planets must be among the planetary bodies. There must be life elsewhere, probability absolutely demands it.

There has to be so many stars.
We can only look so far there is definitely more to be seen and discovered!

I think that just because we're carbon carbon based sentient beings..... That doesn't mean other sentient beings couldn't be, say, hydrogen based, or iron based.

Planets that would kill a human within seconds could possibly be the perfect place for another form of life.

I'm not saying that EVERY planet has the capacity to nurture life, but I think you get my drift.

Can an alien civilization make it over the hurdles we have been through and are about to go through. There is no doubt about other life forms however; how far do they advance given the tendencey in nature here on earth to conflict with each other.

try looking up @ night with some high end dual lense night vision goggles and you will be amazed

[edit on 2-8-2004 by IntelRetard]

Earth itself makes a pretty good argument toward limited or no other intelligent life out there. I mean look at the 1000's of species on our planet and the billions of years that have passed and earth has only produce one known intelligent species.

I doubt there is much if any other intelligent life out there.

How many other planets spin at the same speed, orbit at the same speed. have same gravity, have water, are in same spot versus the sun, solar orbit speed, galaxy placement and galaxy orbit speed, galaxy movement through universe speed, distance from other sunlike large gravity wells etc..... there are literaly billions of unique things that happend/conspired to create humans...

Only one we know of even has life much less intelligent life. I do think odds are pretty high for other life out there just not intelligent life. If there were other life why are there no signals?

[edit on 3-8-2004 by Xeven]

i was wondering, how many galaxies are there in the universe. or at least how many are there that we know that exists

Originally posted by AntiPolitrix
The weird thing about this topic is the stars we see here on earth are probably not even there today

It is weird. Life may be is blooming on a very distant planet or may be they are technologically very advanced and they send a signal through space. By the time we receive the signal, they won't be there!
Nice comparision of sand and stars. Can count neither of them, can only estimate!

Quest,
I find your arguments very thoughtful.

Originally from Quest
Life's delicate balance. To date no other life has been found in our solar system despite planets that have/had water (Mars) or large amount of organics and radiation shielding (Venus). Life as we know it needs not only water, organic compounds, and radiation shielding, but the right amounts of it. You also need a planet that evolves in the correct fashion to allow life to adapt.

However I don't really agree on this one. We have a limited knowledge of what elements give rise to life as we call it. We haven't seen it all!
Life has developed in the most extreme areas of our earth, like hydrothermal vents, deep sea ocean floors where almost no light penetrates, extremely acidic environments, etc. So life doesn't need the right amounts of stuff that you mentioned, rather it is adapting to whatever its receiving from nature.
And who is so sure that there isn't any other life in our solar system. We have hardly looked at the other planets. We have just started to explore the universe beyond the earth. There could be life on mars underground! If not in our solar system, then may be our solar system is "cursed" with only one planet with life. Other stars may have more than one or all planets with life, who knows until we explore it all!

[edit on 8/3/2004 by jp1111]

Originally posted by Xeven
. If there were other life why are there no signals?

[edit on 3-8-2004 by Xeven]

Simple the distance of space. Say there was another civilisation on the other side of the milky way sending signals out it would take 100,000 years for it to get here. He havent even have the tech to listen for a hundred years yet.

Originally posted by 2009
i was wondering, how many galaxies are there in the universe. or at least how many are there that we know that exists

Hundreds of billions of galaxies! Estimated around 125 billion by hubble with 3000 visible and increasing.