Poll: Where is everyone?

[Sliver]

Yes I'm talking aliens.

A rocky planet has been discovered orbiting our closest neighbour.The alien world, Proxima Centauri b, is warmed by the light of Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star that sits just 4.24 light-years away. It's also orbiting in the Goldie Locks zone so may well have liquid water on it's surface. The next step is to search for oxygen in it's atmosphere which would almost certainly mean life is there.

Anyway, aside from this, maybe the mods can create a poll. A simple 'Do you think there is other life in the Universe: Yes - No.

I'd be interested in who thinks what and why.

 

[Sliver]

How close we are to finding meaningful organisms well that may not be for us to find out.

Actually this new planet is to us as close as we can get without leaving our own Solar System. We might find life on one of Saturn's or Jupitar's moons but for now Proxima Centauri b, is looking promising.

 

[Sliver]

nvm.

Still lots of possible planets, seems like a cert.

 

[Sliver]

I look at it this way... If the universe truly is infinite, then there must be infinite variations of stars, planets, atmospheres, temperatures; so logically there must be other sentient life out there.

Our current model of the Universe is that it is not infinite. The Big Bang theory predicts accelerating inflation from 13.8 billion years ago. However, there is the multiverse theory which in practice could be infinite.

 

[Sliver]

Its wasnt a big bang. It was a big expansion, quite a difference.

You know that everyone refers to it as 'The Big Bang' Right? I pay you the compliment of knowing that. I did also mention inflation in my post.

I was simply rattling a response out as I'm quite busy here.

 

[Sliver]

When they say Proxima Centauri b is in the Goldilocks zone, is that using the same distance as we are to our sun or altered in accordance with the size of Proxima Centauri which is much smaller than Sol?

This image shows what's going on. The reason that Proximal b is closer to the star is because it's star is a Red Dwarf and burns much more cooler than our Sun.

 

[Sliver]

Interesting. So would you be able to look at a cooler red dwarf with the naked eye? Does it appear like the sun at sunset?

Good question. I don't know as I've never been close to one to check it out!

 

[Sliver]

The main definition is the crux though, define life. The broader the definition the more likely there is "life" elsewhere

Life would defined in this sense as a self replicating organism with a genetic code to pass on.

 

[Sliver]

Which is a very low benchmark compared to a lot of peoples views.

There are probably millions and millions in that case.

Exactly right. Finding any other non-Earth life would be massive. Who ever could do it would be knee deep in Nobel Prizes . It would also throw a spanner in the works for the worlds religions. They'd have to re-write Genesis to include E.T.

 

[Sliver]

there's a huge difference between self replicating organisms and conscious apes that can create satellites and computers?

Well yes and no as great apes like us are also self replicating organisms. This is why I gave that definition when asked earlier, it covers all life

But yes, clearly a bacteria would find it hard to build satellite or a computer.

 

[Sliver]

Of course to explore the possibilities properly first we would have to shed most of the self inflicted axioms of "extraterrestrial life" binding this conversation. Are we talking about aliens, or aliens that are similar to biology on our planet. Do the aliens that we are going to accept as proper visitors have to be constricted by our understanding of life time and space framework, dimensional limitations, the so called habitable parameters of universe and most of all - mechanical technology. They just must be travelling onboard flying crafts we can pick up by radar and their civilisation must emit radio waves, preferably within timeframe and frequency range of our own calibrated listening equipment? Right?

Already answered the thrust(see what I did there) of this question earlier shown here in quotes. As for the rest I have no idea really. I assume they need technology to get here. Maybe if they could utilise an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, their space craft could be small enough and so easier to manufacture. Otherwise I'd assume the distances would be too far to travel.

Life would be defined in this sense as a self replicating organism with a genetic code to pass on.

Well yes and no as great apes like us are also self replicating organisms. This is why I gave that definition when asked earlier, it covers all life

But yes, clearly a bacteria would find it hard to build satellite or a computer.

 

[Sliver]

What's up with all the wink eyes? I don't understand.

Just a friendly way of showing we have come to the answer we both wanted. The truth.

 

[Sliver]

Spoiler

I'm going to throw out some approximations because I can't remember exact numbers. Also, these threads bug me

So 1 Astronomical Unit is 93 million miles. That's what they use to measure the distance covered by the Voyager probes. For example, Voyager 1 is now in Interstellar Space after traveling for nearly 4 decades at around 40,000 mph. So its covered around 130AU units.

A nothing distance in space. A tiny fraction of a percent of a light-year, as there's 60,000 odd AUs in one light-year. And one light-year equates to 5.9 trillion miles, or

5,900,000,000,000 miles.

So traveling at light-speed (that's a 186,000 miles a second) it would still take 2.5 million years to reach our nearest galaxy, Andromeda.

Again, even if we could get close to that speed, other than exploring locally it's pretty useless. But it would put a stop to the media harping on about Goldilocks zones when they discover such planets are not 'super Earths', and lush Gaia's filled with rainbows and fresh water oceans teeming with dolphins and tunafish.

My point is space is hostile and stupid crazy big. Whatever life or intelligent life is out there we ain't gonna find them anytime soon, and vica versa. In fact I'd say it'll be 100s of years before we find any kind of extraterrestrial life (assuming we don't bomb ourselves back to the stone age that is). And I'm talking Dinosaur type stuff here, not some slime frozen in a chunk of ice.

And lets not forget that Dinosaurs ran around eating each other for over a 150 million years, and the only thing that bothered them during that massive amount of time was a big space rock.

Your mathematics is off for travel time. With current technology it would take over one hundred thousand years to get there, remember it's not in a neighbouring Galaxy Andromeda, it's in our Galaxy. At the speed of light it would take 4ish years. Check out the link below, it has the answers in the video and write up.

http://www.space.com/33844-proxima-b-exoplanet-interstellar-mission.html

 

[Sliver]

Can you clarify whether you mean life or intelligent life because most posters are assuming you mean intelligent?

Yeah I know that's because a lot of posters come in and jump to the last page without reading up. I was asked this question and my reply was:

Life would be defined in this sense as a self replicating organism with a genetic code to pass on. This would cover all life.

 

[Sliver]

Then absolutely 100%, there has got to be some form of life out there.
I believe life will start wherever it gets the chance but whether it is intelligent I don't know.

Well life became intelligent here(us) about 200,000 years ago and life had been running for around 3.5 billion years at that point. So intelligent life, life that can create technologies and advance, would seem to be extremely rare.

So my point would be, what are the odds of two technologically advanced civilisations being around at the same time, who could then communicate or even visit each other. I suspect that's a very small number, maybe even 0.

 

[Sliver]

Far better to continue to explore our own Solar System. The moon Europa may be a candidate for life.

Yeah. Also we have Enceladus, Titan and then of course Mars. Not looking good for Mars though. I think their bet is fossilised microbes, but who knows.

 

[Sliver]

Always with the thinking Sliver! I voted yes.

Life in the universe is not equal to 0. There is no evidence it is 2+.

We are lucky to have a single fossil record; it takes certain unusual conditions to get a fossil.

Hawkins thinks there is alien life.

There was a similar thread in past here started by NeilFawcett if you are interested:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18555167&highlight=GOLDILOCKS

Thanks jpod I'll take a quick at that. Nice to see you're still here, I thought you might have left for a while there.

 

[Sliver]

That's really pessimistic view considering you have more than ample evidence of previous advanced life, very different to ours, on this very planet alone. Entire ranges of species, environments and environmental factors appearing and disappearing from the face of the Earth across millions of years.

It would be awfully shortsighted to reject strong possibility if not certainty that this very planet already had technologically advanced life in the past - long before us. Even within what - 200 years old boundaries of biology and technology that we can define and grasp at the moment, which on its own, is a very narrow set of factors for "intelligent life" or "technologically advanced" considering age of life here, in front of us.

You're wrong. And I'm going to leave there because I frankly don't care. I'm not being rude to you as a person, it's just that I'm not going to try explain the truth to you because I'm sick of doing it on these forums. Sorry.

 

[Sliver]

Also, from your first post life on other planets does not necessarily need oxygen to survive. At the moment (on earth) the only molecule that is known to be needed for all life is water. Gaseous oxygen is not needed by some life on this planet.

You need to read what I (I know you were talking to Tefal but this post is a response to his and mine) said in context to the conversation being said at the time. Oxygen is vital for life on this planet once you realise that by life we are talking about life that feeds on plants. In Earths early history the life to appear on land were plant like microbes that used photosynthesis to survive and in doing so produced oxygen. Millions of years of evolution later, and the land was covered in forested plant life which was so prolific it actually altered the chemistry of the atmosphere, making way for animal life to move out of the oceans and onto land.

So it's a step by step process. First abiogenesis, then photosynthesising microbes, then land based plant life, then land based animal life.

 

[Sliver]

So while looking for planets high in Oxygen may help us find life, you'd quite possibly miss a significant amount of other life that didn't evolve the same way as Earth and that step by step process may be profoundly different.

Yes but as the planets which may support life, like Proxima Centauri b, are so distant the ONLY way we can currently have a chance at establishing sufficient evidence for life is by analysing their atmospheres for signs of oxygen.

Also, life elsewhere in the Universe, in my opinion, would need two things, two fundamental tenants for existence:

• It would need to be a DNA or equivalent based life in order to self replicate.
• It would need to follow the laws of Darwinian Natural Selection in order to evolve.