The Atlantic - How Many Astronauts Believe Aliens Exist? Answer - ALL of them.

Intuitively and intellectually we can say that aliens must exist
in the universe but astronauts have prolly seen evidence

Soylent Green Is People

Biigs
The universe is massive beyond comprehension, to think that in all of those star systems on all of those planets, this was the only one.

The tragedy in all this, is that due to the size of the universe, even if two advanced civilizations did exist in the same time frame, the chances of them meeting does get slim. Remember you have to not only detect the aliens but get there before they die out. When you are talking in terms of millions of light years distance and billions of years of time the harsh odds of space mean its unlikely for all but a tiny handful - i do hope thats us though, chances of it being in my life time? Even slimmer yet

Yes. They would have to find us, which may not be that easy.

Our solar system is smaller than a speck of dust in the vastness of the known universe. Even if we take into account our radio transmissions, the distance those transmissions have traveled in 100 years of broadcasting creates a bubble of only 200 light-years in diameter (the tiny blue dot in the image below) -- and almost non-existent size of space compared to the universe.

Image Source and Article "The Extent of Human Radio Broadcasts in the Milky Way"

Cool pic. here's another which covers the volume of space most of the exoplanets we've found exist in:




One thing that should be noted is that our planet has been sending out its own signal that life exists here for about 3 billion years. This is due to the ratio of gasses that can only exist on a life bearing world. This ratio gives off a certain spectra which any sufficiently advanced aliens with a large coronagraph or a big set of space telescopes could have seen any time in the last 2-3 billion years.

We ourselves are planning to detect life on exoplanets exactly this way. If we're just thinking about this now, you can bet someone out there has thought of it long ago.

So while our radio signature is small, our life signature stretches from here nearly to the Andromeda Galaxy.

JimOberg

People are still puzzled why we don't seem to notice -- or recognize -- manifestly non-natural energy flows out in the galaxy and beyond. A wide range of civilizations with a wide range of motivations ought to include at least a small few conducting engineering, gardening, aesthetic remodeling, or wars that really ought to be producing detectable signals. Fermi's Paradox lives.

As to why putative visitors hereabouts aren't unambiguously present, that depends entirely on their motives for such visits, and is beyond the control or understanding of the visitees.

It's the apparent silence OUT THERE that remains the challenge to explain, but there are suggestions. The question fascinates.

The only people puzzled by the Fermi Paradox are those who believe we've dredged the entire ocean for fish when in reality all we've done is go to the beach and dip a bucket in the water. Then we ask "why is it that in an ocean this size, we've seen no sign of fish in this here bucket?"

We've only begun to examine what's out there. Chances arewe will detect life and perhaps intelligence within your lifetime if you're under 50 (I know you're older James) due to ever more sophisticated instruments on earth and in space.

JadeStar
...One thing that should be noted is that our planet has been sending out its own signal that life exists here for about 3 billion years. This is due to the ratio of gasses that can only exist on a life bearing world. This ratio gives off a certain spectra which any sufficiently advanced aliens with a large coronagraph or a big set of space telescopes could have seen any time in the last 2-3 billion years...

Correct, but that may not make us interesting enough to come visit. I bet there are many, many planets in the Milky Way alone that show signs of life in an analysis of their atmospheres. If I were an alien species thousands of LY away, Earth still may not seem like that uniquely important of a place to visit. Perhaps interstellar space travel is possible, but still relatively difficult enough to make a 10,000 LY trip not something an alien species would do on a whim.

Angelic Resurrection
Intuitively and intellectually we can say that aliens must exist
in the universe but astronauts have prolly seen evidence

I don't know. Astronauts really haven't gone very far. I'm not sure why they would necessarily see anything more than we can see regarding aliens simply because they go into orbit -- or even to the Moon, which really isn't going that far at all.

That's like saying the Kansas farm boy who had once traveled to the next farm over must have learned something about the Chinese during that trip.

This isn't such a big thing is it?

It doesn't take an Astronaut(s) to work this out does it?

The laws of probability dictate that there is life in the universe somewhere. We've only just started exploring our own Galaxy and yet there are signs that many planets are capable of sustaining life. Is it life, but not as we know it? There is plenty of basic life forms living in some very hostile parts of our own world, so all the signs are positive that life is out there.

FlyersFan
** That's the title of the article

The Atlantic - How Many Astronauts Believe Aliens Exist?

Astronaut Chris Hadfield is a reasonable man, a former commander of the International Space Station, and a social media superstar.

He recently went on WNYC's Brian Lehrer show to discuss his life and career when a caller asked him about the existence of "alien life."

"I don't know of any astronauts who think we're alone in the universe," Hadfield replied.

Now, he's obviously not talking about the UFO-Area-51 imaginary kind of aliens. He's commenting on the possibility that somewhere out there, on some other planet, there are the bags of chemicals we call organisms reproducing themselves.

The Atlantic says that Chris Hadfield is 'obviously not talking about UFO-Area-51 imaginary kind of aliens'. HOWEVER, that's not what Chris Hadfield said. (And even if he was speaking of 'organisms that reproduce themselves', then evolution leads to more complicated creatures that eventually could enter space travel.) Seems to me that Hadfield was pretty clear ... and it he wasn't saying what The Atlantic claimed ...

Commander Chris Hadfield on Aliens, Thinking Like an Astronaut, and Sex in Space (Maybe)

"Bags of Chemicals" Ha ha Love it!
Some more poisonous than others Eh!

I will be surprised if life of some sort does not exist in our solar system (outside of Earth) and would expect it to be quite common in the universe.

But there is no evidence intelligent life exists, or has ever existed, anywhere in the universe ......

Id have to say that someone somewhere knows that there is intelligent life out there. Why so many radio telescopes all over the world and some of them things are huge look at the one in PR. I think they found out a very long time ago and are now watching them like the NSA does us Americans well and everyone else lol. Why spend so much money on that stuff on a whim. Theres stuff up there and i wish i knew about it it would blow my mind.

Soylent Green Is People


That's like saying the Kansas farm boy who had once traveled to the next farm over must have learned something about the Chinese during that trip.

I believe they relayed to Houston " I have Santa Claus " when
they spotted an alien craft in space

But, how many intelligent races of beings in the universe would waste their planets resources by creating a space program. You think intelligence would make them find ways to preserve the biodome they live in and improve it's ability to easily sustain their existence without negatively affecting the environment much...

We have to look at intellect in the right format. War is not intelligent. Creating chemistry that hurts the environment is not intelligent. Filling the upper atmosphere with junk is not intelligent. They wouldn't do that, after five a couple of hundred years they would learn that this doesn't work.

Maybe they learned after building big mother ships because they destroyed the livability of their home world.

Angelic Resurrection

Soylent Green Is People


That's like saying the Kansas farm boy who had once traveled to the next farm over must have learned something about the Chinese during that trip.

I believe they relayed to Houston " I have Santa Claus " when
they spotted an alien craft in space

I'm not sure if you have any exact transcripts of the dialog in which they are alleged to have referred to unidentified craft as "Santa Claus", but I'd like to read some of it if you do.

I do know that Jim Lovell once said "Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus" immediately after learning the critical engine burn that would get Apollo 8 back home was completed successfully. He said this mainly because that burn occurred on Christmas Day, and he was happy to receive the Christmas present of not dying in space due to an incorrect burn that could leave them on a non-earth trajectory.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Earth’s Expanding Radio Bubble

As depicted in the beginning of the movie ‘Contact’, the earth has an expanding ‘bubble’ of man-made radio signals expanding outward at the speed of light. The first of these early radio transmissions were short range experiments that used simple clicks and interrupts to show transmission of information in the 1890s. In 1900, Reginald Fessenden made the first — though incredibly weak — voice transmission over the airwaves. The next year saw a step up in power as Guglielmo Marconi made the first ever transatlantic radio broadcast.

This means that at 110 light-years away from earth — the edge of a radio ‘sphere’ which contains many star systems — our very first radio broadcasts are beginning to arrive. At 74 light-years away, television signals are being introduced. Star systems at a distance of 50 light-years are now entering the ‘Twilight Zone’.

Ya know, people never really stop and think about this little fact. Thanks for the reminder.

The strength of a radio signal will be only 1/4 as great once you are twice the distance from the source. At ten times the distance, the strength of the signal would only be one hundredth as great.

Because of this inverse square law, all of our terrestrial radio signals become indistinguishable from background noise at around a few light-years from earth. For a civilization only a couple hundred light-years away, trying to listen to our broadcasts would be like trying to detect the small ripple from a pebble dropped in the pacific ocean off the coast of California – from Japan.

They should design a radio satellite like those little Russian nesting dolls. Each one would fly out as far as it could, release the next one, fly out as far as it could, and so on. Like one big giant radio tentacle.

We make about the same ripple as a fly taking a dump in the ocean.

Angelic Resurrection
Intuitively and intellectually we can say that aliens must exist
in the universe but astronauts have prolly seen evidence

How nice to be able to 'assume' imaginary non-evidence to validate one's own biases. How well has that been working for you?

Don't be so fatalistic. Try using your intellectual powers to assess evidence in an adult manner. You may be amazed how much can actually be discovered about these kinds of stories. You might not LIKE it, but it has the advantage of being reality-based and not wish-based.

JadeStar

JimOberg

People are still puzzled why we don't seem to notice -- or recognize -- manifestly non-natural energy flows out in the galaxy and beyond. A wide range of civilizations with a wide range of motivations ought to include at least a small few conducting engineering, gardening, aesthetic remodeling, or wars that really ought to be producing detectable signals. Fermi's Paradox lives.

As to why putative visitors hereabouts aren't unambiguously present, that depends entirely on their motives for such visits, and is beyond the control or understanding of the visitees.

It's the apparent silence OUT THERE that remains the challenge to explain, but there are suggestions. The question fascinates.

The only people puzzled by the Fermi Paradox are those who believe we've dredged the entire ocean for fish when in reality all we've done is go to the beach and dip a bucket in the water. Then we ask "why is it that in an ocean this size, we've seen no sign of fish in this here bucket?"

That is a very weak attempt at an analogy. False analogies are even more dangerous than false evidence. If the oceans were mostly transparent, as space is, and if sound carried as efficiently as electromagnetic radiation does through space, and if organic material which permeates sea water weren't there, maybe it's a mostly meaningless stretch. Otherwise, a schoolboy major FAIL, in my humble opinion.

Soylent Green Is People

JadeStar
...One thing that should be noted is that our planet has been sending out its own signal that life exists here for about 3 billion years. This is due to the ratio of gasses that can only exist on a life bearing world. This ratio gives off a certain spectra which any sufficiently advanced aliens with a large coronagraph or a big set of space telescopes could have seen any time in the last 2-3 billion years...

Correct, but that may not make us interesting enough to come visit. I bet there are many, many planets in the Milky Way alone that show signs of life in an analysis of their atmospheres. If I were an alien species thousands of LY away, Earth still may not seem like that uniquely important of a place to visit. Perhaps interstellar space travel is possible, but still relatively difficult enough to make a 10,000 LY trip not something an alien species would do on a whim.

True in principle, but I think you have the age of a life-altered atmosphere a lot too high -- the Cambrian Explosion is generally thought to represent the time that free oxygen accumulated in the open air, and when iron deposits changed from ferric to ferrous compounds, as I recall the thesis.

Angelic Resurrection

Soylent Green Is People


That's like saying the Kansas farm boy who had once traveled to the next farm over must have learned something about the Chinese during that trip.

I believe they relayed to Houston " I have Santa Claus " when
they spotted an alien craft in space

You may believe what you like, whatever makes you feel smarter.

But that story, as with so many others widely reechoed in the land of UFOria, turns out to have been another hoax from some phony posing as "former Chief of NASA Communications". That pose was make-believe too.

Do a little deeper investigation before 'believing' too much of this stuff, is what I recommend.

Lest I get too quickly categorized as a curmudgeonly naysayer, here's my optimistic view on the likelihood of encountering biology on other worlds in our solar system, and the chances we will be related to it:
www.jamesoberg.com...

JimOberg

Angelic Resurrection
Intuitively and intellectually we can say that aliens must exist
in the universe but astronauts have prolly seen evidence

How nice to be able to 'assume' imaginary non-evidence to validate one's own biases. How well has that been working for you?

Don't be so fatalistic. Try using your intellectual powers to assess evidence in an adult manner. You may be amazed how much can actually be discovered about these kinds of stories. You might not LIKE it, but it has the advantage of being reality-based and not wish-based.

.


From my experience, most on ats are blind to visible proof
So the word evidence on ats is moot

Lets change the question. How many educated people believe that life is unique to this planet?

The answer is roughly zero.

Why draw in the minority view to validate your opinion?

MOST OF US BY FAR except that life is NOT unique to Planet Earth. Why the debate?