Poll: Where is everyone?

[Amp34]

I understand the timing and evolution of plants. Your OP wasn't too clear that you specifically meant looking for oxygen as a way of finding planets that have photosynthesising plants.

All that said you're falling into the trap of assuming life out there (and evolution of it) is very similar to here. Yes it could be, but at the same time it may well not. As an example Titan may have life, but almost certainly no photosynthetic life.

What we know is all life on Earth needs water, which is why the search for liquid water is so big. The feedstock of advanced life elsewhere may not need light however and not produce Oxygen. Perhaps the feedstock (aka plants to us) for an advanced civilisation on a planet a few light years away is chemicals. We have this on Earth as an example. Life around hydrothermal vents on Earth doesn't need photosynthesis or light to survive, and indeed thrives on chemicals erupted from the vents.

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.

 

[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.

 

[Rybo89]

There is more than likely other life in the universe but i doubt we will ever find them or them find us.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

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.

Where is the proof?

 

[Liquiduk]

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.

Based off what we know today, sure. As eluded to in your very interesting discussions with Amp, our understanding of what criteria a planet needs to sustain any form of life is using the narrative of our own understanding of modern science and Earth itself.

Given how vast and complex the universe is, the fact you called your astronomical adversary (had to do it) wrong is ignorance.

 

[v0n]

Where is the proof?

If you accept that our species evolved and adapted to environment to current level in very short time vs overall timescale of life on earth, why would you reject possibility of it happening before?

Life on this planet is what - over half a billion years old and rebooted multiple times in the past, but somehow today we are absolutely certain that only the last few thousand years were in any way blessed with intelligence and of technological significance.

We know this, because we found a few fossils back in a day and despite our sample range verging on scientific insignificance and knowledge of the Earth's past being mostly purely speculative - we are absolutely certain that all of the species across hundreds of millions of years were dumb as **** and never evolved to anything of significance because let's face it - none of the handful of extinct species we catalogued to date died next to playstation remote or looked even remotely capable of wearing jeans. And that's about the only proof we would accept at this stage of our intelligence. That's about right, right?

 

[Apsilon]

The universe is big, unimaginably big, and law of averages - or Drakes Law in this case - would suggest that life almost certainly flourishes elsewhere. Not just in the universe but, in our galaxy. Conservative estimates put the amount of stars in the Milky Way at 200-400 billion (with 100 billion observable galaxies). If 10% of those are similar to our Sun, that's 20-40 billion stars with the potential for habitable systems - in our galaxy alone - so the probability that we are not unique is high in my honest opinion.

Someone has already mention the Fermi Paradox and this take on it is especially good at explaining it: http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Further to the question about life elsewhere though, there's a huge problem. Distance! If life does exist elsewhere and is intelligent, it's unlikely we'll ever know about them, nor they us. The distances are simply too vast. It's one thing sending signals to star systems within our local neighbourhood., i.e., 100ly's or so. It's entirely another receiving a signal back and thinking about getting there. We can't even get to a person to Mars yet so a star is out of the question. The Centauri stars are 4ly's away which in astronomical terms, is paltry and on current tech, would take anywhere from 30,000 - 70,000 years to get there, depending on which estimates you believe. Either way, that's not even in the realms of feasibility and it will remain that way until there is a serious technological breakthrough that can vastly reduce travel times in space to no more than a few decades to the nearest stars.

The sad reality is, whilst the galaxy may be teeming with life, we are to all intents and purposes completely and utterly alone and I seriously doubt we'll ever get out of the solar system, much less get to the stars.

 

[datalol-jack]

The universe is big, unimaginably big, and law of averages - or Drakes Law in this case - would suggest that life almost certainly flourishes elsewhere. Not just in the universe but, in our galaxy. Conservative estimates put the amount of stars in the Milky Way at 200-400 billion (with 100 billion observable galaxies). If 10% of those are similar to our Sun, that's 20-40 billion stars with the potential for habitable systems - in our galaxy alone - so the probability that we are not unique is high in my honest opinion.

Someone has already mention the Fermi Paradox and this take on it is especially good at explaining it: http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Further to the question about life elsewhere though, there's a huge problem. Distance! If life does exist elsewhere and is intelligent, it's unlikely we'll ever know about them, nor they us. The distances are simply too vast. It's one thing sending signals to star systems within our local neighbourhood., i.e., 100ly's or so. It's entirely another receiving a signal back and thinking about getting there. We can't even get to a person to Mars yet so a star is out of the question. The Centauri stars are 4ly's away which in astronomical terms, is paltry and on current tech, would take anywhere from 30,000 - 70,000 years to get there, depending on which estimates you believe. Either way, that's not even in the realms of feasibility and it will remain that way until there is a serious technological breakthrough that can vastly reduce travel times in space to no more than a few decades to the nearest stars.

The sad reality is, whilst the galaxy may be teeming with life, we are to all intents and purposes completely and utterly alone and I seriously doubt we'll ever get out of the solar system, much less get to the stars.

I'm of a similar persuasion. But some idealists think that if one can't go faster than light, then one ought to fold space instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive.

A somewhat sci-fi approach.

 

[Apsilon]

I'm of a similar persuasion. But some idealists think that if one can't go faster than light, then one ought to fold space instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive.

A somewhat sci-fi approach.

Yes, the warp drive is an interesting concept but, very theoretical and would require enormous amounts of energy. I'm very sceptical about this but then, who knows what will be achievable in another thousand or ten thousand years? If we're still around...

 

[Sliver]

I'm of a similar persuasion. But some idealists think that if one can't go faster than light, then one ought to fold space instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive.

A somewhat sci-fi approach.

Yeah, the amount of energy theoretically required to fold space is enormous and I'm not sure any advanced civilisation could come close to achieving it. The only way that I can see of it happening, is if they came across a natural Einstein-Rosen Bridge and used that, but if so, how would you control your destination? So as you rightly say, it's all sci-fi at this point.

 

[platypus]

A tier 3 civilisation would easily be able to generate enough power for this.

 

[datalol-jack]

Yes, the warp drive is an interesting concept but, very theoretical and would require enormous amounts of energy. I'm very sceptical about this but then, who knows what will be achievable in another thousand or ten thousand years? If we're still around...

I'd also be interested in surviving the trip and not obliterating my destination! (You can't send an advance 'coming in hot' message to a civ you don't know about and in the language you can't speak.) Robotic probes and better comms will do for now. Of course, we could be approaching the whole thing backwards: genetic engineering and seeding of other suitable planets is still sci-fi, but less sci-fi than the warp drive; life can create other life, and for me that's far more interesting.

Yeah, the amount of energy theoretically required to fold space is enormous and I'm not sure any advanced civilisation could come close to achieving it. The only way that I can see of it happening, is if they came across a natural Einstein-Rosen Bridge and used that, but if so, how would you control your destination? So as you rightly say, it's all sci-fi at this point.

There's also this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...ragonfly-44-invisible-milky-way-a7209881.html.

 

[Apsilon]

A tier 3 civilisation would easily be able to generate enough power for this.

So where are they...?

 

[Sliver]

A tier 3 civilisation would easily be able to generate enough power for this.

Ok. And how would they do that?

 

[Apsilon]

I'd also be interested in surviving the trip and not obliterating my destination! (You can't send an advance 'coming in hot' message to a civ you don't know about and in the language you can't speak.) Robotic probes and better comms will do for now. Of course, we could be approaching the whole thing backwards: genetic engineering and seeding of other suitable planets is still sci-fi, but less sci-fi than the warp drive; life can create other life, and for me that's far more interesting.

Aren't NASA floating the idea of sending small mobile phones sized probes to the Centauri stars in the next 20 years or so? I'm sure I read somewhere that they were working on small drones with basic communication and camera devices, that they thought they could get up to relativistic speeds (10% or so) for a fly past of said stars that would get them there within 50 years?

I might be missing something here but surely, you'd need something bigger than a drone the size of a mobile phone with a comms device capable of sending signals 4lys back to earth

 

[Sliver]

There's also this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...ragonfly-44-invisible-milky-way-a7209881.html.

Yeah, to be honest I don't know much about dark matter/energy. How would it help beings travel between galaxies or even just to distant stars in their own galaxies?

I have a hunch that String Theory might one day shed light on dark matter, but it's just a hunch. (A hunch because I'm just an arm chair physicist)

 

[datalol-jack]

Aren't NASA floating the idea of sending small mobile phones sized probes to the Centauri stars in the next 20 years or so? I'm sure I read somewhere that they were working on small drones with basic communication and camera devices, that they thought they could get up to relativistic speeds (10% or so) for a fly past of said stars that would get them there within 50 years?

I might be missing something here but surely, you'd need something bigger than a drone the size of a mobile phone with a comms device capable of sending signals 4lys back to earth

Don't think of it as a single, tiny drone on its own in the vastness of space calling home -- think networks. Two decades is optimistic though.

Yeah, to be honest I don't know much about dark matter/energy. How would it help beings travel between galaxies or even just to distant stars in their own galaxies?

I have a hunch that String Theory might one day shed light on dark matter, but it's just a hunch. (A hunch because I'm just an arm chair physicist)

People who study it for a living with considerable funds don't either. So more sci-fi, or 'miracles of the gaps' argument, I'm afraid. There's some hope that dark matter/dark energy will interact sufficiently differently with the laws of physics as we know them to make FTL hacks possible. But at present, it's just a series of indirect effects we observe, to my knowledge, with no clear explanation, hence 'dark'.

 

[Sliver]

Don't think of it as a single, tiny drone on its own in the vastness of space calling home -- think networks. Two decades is optimistic though.

I read the other day that these drones would be powered by powerful lasers on Earth that could accelerate them to a significant proportion of the speed of light. Is that what you heard? Sounds interesting and theoretically would only take around 25 years to reach our nearest star.

 

[datalol-jack]

I read the other day that these drones would be powered by powerful lasers on Earth that could accelerate them to a significant proportion of the speed of light. Is that what you heard? Sounds interesting and theoretically would only take around 25 years to reach our nearest star.

Yep. Staggered launches, repeaters and swarms of these things seem to have engineers very excited, and is plausible enough for the media to get on the case. It's a step forward given the constraints.

 

[Efour]

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

Have you been to romford on a Saturday night?