Are we not far away from discovering alien life

^Enceladus has an icy surface but a very active ocean below it. geysers erupt at the south pole and send water and gases into space. It is thought this ocean could well harbour some form of life.

There was a very interesting article on daily galaxy recently (as has been the case over the years anyway) on this very subject. One astronomer put forward the idea that if there is advanced intelligent life out there then they could be in front of our noses and we'd never know it because we only understand life as we know it, carbon based life.

Our Universe is some 14 billion years old and our solar system has been around for 4 of them. Assuming intelligent life out there has had even a few million years head start, then logically they'd be beyond what we would know as life?

We've also only recently confirmed high and low frequency gravitational waves and future technologies will help make detecting them deeper into Space. Here is the most recent article on that topic:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...ld-where-cosmic-murmurs-begin-to-be-hear.html

It's only now that we've started confirming Einstein's theories using technology. In the space of 100 years we've gone from manned flight on Earth to sending probes that have now exited our solar system and entered unknown Space. Think what an advanced civilisation that has had millions more earth years to evolve could be capable of.

To me, it seems the more new findings that emerge, the more evident it becomes that we are just infants compared to what's seemingly possible out there. We still use radio waves to communicate, yet we now know that information can be transmitted instantly at a quantum level through entanglement regardless of the distance between each end. Imagine the day where we can harness that power. Imagine lifeforms out there that have been evolving for billions of years longer than us and are probably already using it and more :eek:
 
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mrk said:
^Enceladus has an icy surface but a very active ocean below it. geysers erupt at the south pole and send water and gases into space. It is thought this ocean could well harbour some form of life.

There was a very interesting article on daily galaxy recently (as has been the case over the years anyway) on this very subject. One astronomer put forward the idea that if there is advanced intelligent life out there then they could be in front of our noses and we'd never know it because we only understand life as we know it, carbon based life.

Our Universe is some 14 billion years old and our solar system has been around for 4 of them. Assuming intelligent life out there has had even a few million years head start, then logically they'd be beyond what we would know as life?

We've also only recently confirmed high and low frequency gravitational waves and future technologies will help make detecting them deeper into Space. Here is the most recent article on that topic:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblo...ld-where-cosmic-murmurs-begin-to-be-hear.html

It's only now that we've started confirming Einstein's theories using technology. In the space of 100 years we've gone from manned flight on Earth to sending probes that have now exited our solar system and entered unknown Space. Think what an advanced civilisation that has had millions more earth years to evolve could be capable of.

To me, it seems the more new findings that emerge, the more evident it becomes that we are just infants compared to what's seemingly possible out there. We still use radio waves to communicate, yet we now know that information can be transmitted instantly at a quantum level through entanglement regardless of the distance between each end. Imagine the day where we can harness that power. Imagine lifeforms out there that have been evolving for billions of years longer than us and are probably already using it and more :eek:
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We are actually quite early on for life emerging in the universe - there was a brief window early on but any life that did emerge then would have been wiped out by later changes in background radiation unless they became incredible advanced.

The 2nd window for life emerging is something like 8billion years ago or so which means that any early on civilisations would have had to have progressed enough to leave their original planet by now which actually means that relatively speaking the bulk of life out there would be sort of contemporary with ourselves - albeit that could be 100s of millions of years or even a couple of billion apart.

From what we know the probability of life emerging is pretty low combine with advanced forms of life developing also very low probability even when life does emerge and IMO we are near the start of the timeline in that regard for this universe.
 
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
Arthur C. Clarke.

I doubt we will ever discover intelligent alien life in the life-time of humanity, let alone mine. I suspect the bubble of the Solar system will forever be the extent of our reach. The idea an alien race could or would discover humanity and visit is also equally improbable before our sun goes supernova.

Shame.
 
Rroff said:
We are actually quite early on for life emerging in the universe - there was a brief window early on but any life that did emerge then would have been wiped out by later changes in background radiation unless they became incredible advanced.

The 2nd window for life emerging is something like 8billion years ago or so which means that any early on civilisations would have had to have progressed enough to leave their original planet by now which actually means that relatively speaking the bulk of life out there would be sort of contemporary with ourselves - albeit that could be 100s of millions of years or even a couple of billion apart.

From what we know the probability of life emerging is pretty low combine with advanced forms of life developing also very low probability even when life does emerge and IMO we are near the start of the timeline in that regard for this universe.
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That's assuming distant life followed the same path we did on our home turf though. Different systems, galaxies, universes all with different exotic materials and different physics to our own would mean things would be completely different for those guys. Maybe they'd evolve much slower, maybe they evolve faster, maybe they don't even need to evolve, they just "exist".

A whole lot of maybes though :p But nothing in this topic is too SciFi any more really given what we're beginning to understand.
 
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Longbow said:
He's being correct.



Probability of life? If so where are you getting the numbers from?

We can make educated assumptions as to how many galaxies there are, how many stars there are, how many planets there are, how many habitable planets there are. These assumptions can all be extrapolated from what we have observed so far. What we don't know and have no clue about, is life.

You can throw around this 1% number all you want, but it's completely baseless. It could be 10%, or 1%, or maybe 0.1^-100%, who knows. It's all wild guesses.
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You're doing the same thing he is. Stop getting so hung up on something even the experts, who can comprehend all of this way better than we do, say.
 
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darkgen said:
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
Arthur C. Clarke.

I doubt we will ever discover intelligent alien life in the life-time of humanity, let alone mine. I suspect the bubble of the Solar system will forever be the extent of our reach. The idea an alien race could or would discover humanity and visit is also equally improbable before our sun goes supernova.

Shame.
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We are right on the cusp of being able to send probes to other stars - within 100 years we will definitely have the technology to both send them to other stars and receive useful information back within the (current) lifespan of a human being.

In a little over 400 years we'll receive a probe from Chi Sagittarii
 
Ryan-3 said:
It will be out there, but finding it will be like spotting a single quantum dot in a giant haystack using a microscope.
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Why? What about the next 25 years? you can't say the above as though it is fact, it's just the same as saying that life out there exists and it's a fact, it's not, i hope there is though.
 
Longbow said:
I'm not getting hung up, this is a discussion. Also, who are these experts that say 1%?
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I never said the 1%. I said that given the sheer amount of planets within the universe, it would be bigheaded of us to assume that life does not exist. This is the bit where I said nobody is appreciating someone who is being anal about 'correct', because for all intents and purposes - given the fact you can't prove it doesn't exist, and I can't prove it exists, we look to the sheer numbers (aka, too many to comprehend) and can assume if we're here, then it is probable that it has happened elsewhere in the universe - which is, as I recall, exactly the same thing many experts say.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I'm just wondering, because of the question the OP asked, if he thought we had already found non intelligent alien life?
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Hey, no i know we have not yet found anything or evidence that life has existed elsewhere, i was just interested on people's views on when we could expect to find evidence of life, intelligent or not.

There is always the option that we already are in contact with ET, like Roswell etc :D

I wish, really doubtful though.
 
Arazi said:
Why? What about the next 25 years? you can't say the above as though it is fact, it's just the same as saying that life out there exists and it's a fact, it's not, i hope there is though.
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Of course it isn't fact, but we are here. Our there are billions and billions of other galaxies. Even if there are only a handful of planets within each one that could be a home for life, intelligent or not, there's a real chance life will have evolved on one of these planets somewhere. Of course, it is still possible that we are the only planet in the universe with life upon it, but we didn't just appear overnight by accident. The same can happen elsewhere. :)
 
I believe alien life has been here before on a few occasions.

I believe the book telling stories talking about a "healer" performing "miracles" (also known as the bible) proves it. Back then if an alien came to earth and was able to heal people, use medicines beyond anyones understanding a comprehension etc then they would be worshiped and called a God. Then people would get scared and eventually kill it (like they did Jesus). There have also been other stories of people who posses healing abilities and can perform miracles dating even further back.

I also think the pyramids being built exactly aligned with other huge ancient structures around the earth proves this theory even further. As does the massive geoglyphs that can only be seen from space.
 
I think that before we can compute the probability of alien life, one of the biggest steps in being able to make that analysis would be the discovery of how life starts in the first place, here on earth.

If we can understand the exact environmental conditions required for life to start, then that would give us a much narrower range of where to look, as future telescopes and space exploration become more advanced - an idea of the right conditions would enable us to identify and focus on specific points of interest.
 
How do we know we don't inhabit a Matrix style environment? And life doesn't exist outside earth because it was never programmed in.

I think there are many reasons for an advanced species to create an elaborate simulation of humankind to follow things like evolution, different factors in development, for their own amusement.
 
norm said:
How do we know we don't inhabit a Matrix style environment? And life doesn't exist outside earth because it was never programmed in.

I think there are many reasons for an advanced species to create an elaborate simulation of humankind to follow things like evolution, different factors in development, for their own amusement.
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Or just the construct of the brain of a life form in the actual universe i.e. extensions of the Boltzmann brain concept - we could all just be self contained sub-systems of a larger brain with the universe we know a construct of the overall brain.
 
Arazi said:
Hey, no i know we have not yet found anything or evidence that life has existed elsewhere, i was just interested on people's views on when we could expect to find evidence of life, intelligent or not.

There is always the option that we already are in contact with ET, like Roswell etc :D

I wish, really doubtful though.
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Thanks.
I wish it was true because I invest so much time in watching many documentaries but I'm yet to be convinced.


no_1_dave said:
I believe alien life has been here before on a few occasions.

I believe the book telling stories talking about a "healer" performing "miracles" (also known as the bible) proves it. Back then if an alien came to earth and was able to heal people, use medicines beyond anyones understanding a comprehension etc then they would be worshiped and called a God. Then people would get scared and eventually kill it (like they did Jesus). There have also been other stories of people who posses healing abilities and can perform miracles dating even further back.

I also think the pyramids being built exactly aligned with other huge ancient structures around the earth proves this theory even further. As does the massive geoglyphs that can only be seen from space.
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No just no.
The Bible stories are just that - stories.
I'm not saying Jesus and his missionary didn't exist, probably did, but stuff gets exaggerated.
He wasn't killed for being an Alien but for saying he was the Son of God which to the Jews was a huge blasphemy.

I've also read the Graham Hancock stories and you have to take that salt with a great big pinch.
Yes I absolutely agree with Robert Bauval that the Pyramids were aligned to Orion's Belt but since Orion & Osiris were pretty big Gods in Egyptian mythology it wasn't a big step to try and build Heaven on Earth.

One of the things that makes me laugh are the people who think Aliens helped to build the Pyramids.
Well for starters they must have been crap builders because the majority of pyramids have fallen down or are in a very poor state where you can't go into them.
Now if you think Aliens helped to build Cheops pyramid then I suggest you go and stand by them like I've done 3 times and it looks like they've been thrown together.
I also suggest you look at the work of Jean-Pierre Houdin a French Architect who's theory on the Great Pyramid was given the thumbs up by Zahi Hawass who was the former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs for decades.
 
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