All reasons that we're alone in the universe (and there is an assload!)

[FudLe Pucker]

I'm sure every1 was once psyked about life on other planets or whatever. But over time, i read many books and a couple of heavy astronomy encyclopedias, and i never found the support of the hypothesis of us being alone in the universe. think about! here are all the factors that must be right at the same time for life to begin:
1) the size of the star
2) the distance between the star and the planet
3) right chemicals (water maybe, or sumtin else, all life doesnt have to base on water; the bases of aminoacids)
4) thick atmosphere
5) the gravity of the planet
6) the size of the planet (heck, if its bigger then the star itself, i dunno how anything can exist on it)
7) safe location (meteors and asteroids often hit planets)
8) how bright and hot the star is
I'm sure there is more.
Stars similar in size, birghtness and temperature to our sun are most likely to form life supporting planets, but are very rare (about 10% in our galaxy). So what makes anyone think, that in that 10% there will be a planet system with the right stuff to start life? Maybe the planet got water and oxygen, but too close to the star, or an asteroid hits it, or the gravity is too low to sustain them on surface. Scientists are wasting money looking for life on the other planets. Deep in all our minds we realize that we might be all alone. But most of us are and denial, and it's time to just forget it.

[Adman]

just think of how big the universe actually is and imagine.

[FudLe Pucker]

i can imagine how fucking huge it is, but there is still little chance. gg i'm out, i'll check ur posts tomorra

[Fit of Rage]

Okay, it's clear that these observations are based on our galaxy alone (your 10% figure) so let me give you a little clarification:

There's billions upon billions of galaxies.

So somewhere out there, there might be other life.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

Plus, it's kind of short-sighted to insist that life has to follow the rules of our own physiology.

[Verthanthi]

Due to the rather large size of the universe, I'm convinced there is more life out there. That said, I am willing to accept that it might be far enough away that humans will never encounter it and thus is meaningless to us.

[RogerMexico]

Re: All reasons that we're alone in the universe (and there is an assload!)

Originally posted by FudLe Pucker
I'm sure every1 was once psyked about life on other planets or whatever. But over time, i read many books and a couple of heavy astronomy encyclopedias, and i never found the support of the hypothesis of us being alone in the universe. think about! here are all the factors that must be right at the same time for life to begin:
1) the size of the star
2) the distance between the star and the planet
3) right chemicals (water maybe, or sumtin else, all life doesnt have to base on water; the bases of aminoacids)
4) thick atmosphere
5) the gravity of the planet
6) the size of the planet (heck, if its bigger then the star itself, i dunno how anything can exist on it)
7) safe location (meteors and asteroids often hit planets)
8) how bright and hot the star is
I'm sure there is more.
Stars similar in size, birghtness and temperature to our sun are most likely to form life supporting planets, but are very rare (about 10% in our galaxy). So what makes anyone think, that in that 10% there will be a planet system with the right stuff to start life? Maybe the planet got water and oxygen, but too close to the star, or an asteroid hits it, or the gravity is too low to sustain them on surface. Scientists are wasting money looking for life on the other planets. Deep in all our minds we realize that we might be all alone. But most of us are and denial, and it's time to just forget it.

What you're loosely bastardizing above is referred to as The Drake Equation. Now, to this day scientists still debate what result the Drake Equation yields (based on the value you choose for one of the factors) and they haven't seem to've agreed on an answer. That means few things, but one of them is that you're probably not in sole posession of the answer. Don't get me wrong, I'm up for speculating. Let's call it what it is, though, instead of pawning it off on the masses as shoddy math.

And for the record, scientists aren't wasting money on the search. There's no longer any government funding for extraterrestrial searches. Instead, the scientists work on donated telescope time, borrowed cpu power from home users, and small-yet-charitable grants from private, wealthy philanthropists. If anything, scientists are wasting their time, but unless you want to tell them that personally, I say we just leave them be.

[Farley]

If by "Scientist" you mean Mulder.

[Sleepy Weasel]

You beat me to it Rog, you beat me to it; same shit I was thinking.

I hate when people rip stuff off and then say shit like "i read many books and a couple of heavy astronomy encyclopedias."

http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious..._equation.html for some info on the drake equation.

Although I don't really know if he's just bastardizing the drake equation because everything he mentions fits under the

ne factor, "the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life"

But I guess he is mostly concerned about life existing rather than us being able to actually find out about it. By the way for your point 6, I'm not sure on this by any means, but I don't think it's possible for planets to be bigger than stars. I'm not an astronomy major. Another thing you say 10% of stars are similar to our sun. Take roughly 200 billion stars, and that leaves 20 billion stars that are still suitable. That's a lot. (I don't think 10% is right but whatever I'm just trying to point out that while you're trying to argue it's a small chance because of 10%, actually 10% is a huge huge huge amount of stars. It kinda goes against your argument Also consider lots of stars have more than 1 planet.)

Hell there is good evidence that there could possibly be water under a frozen ice layer on Europa that contains life. And that's not even leaving our solar system. I just say it's silly to say for a fact life doesn't exist anywhere except Earth.

http://www.d.lane.btinternet.co.uk/Essay.htm

[Azhran]

Originally posted by Verthanthi
Due to the rather large size of the universe, I'm convinced there is more life out there. That said, I am willing to accept that it might be far enough away that humans will never encounter it and thus is meaningless to us.

[Zerzera]

You call this life?


If you look at it, life is very easy to create. It will just be about your defenition of life, and if we would be able to recognise it when we stumble across some alien lifeform.
The chance there are other lifeforms is quite big, the chance that we get to see it is very small.

[SEAL]

if you read so many books you shoulda know,

1) We already found life outside our planet; it was on the news like 1 or 2 years ago. Planet Earth catched this meteor wich containted microscopic life.

2) Scientists asume we got our life from planet mars (meteor crached into mars wich split it --mars&earth&moon--; but this isn't proven yet tho, and a longer story than those 2 lines.

3) who says life needs water+light+etc. Why can't organisms life in toxid gas or whatever. It´s an interesting point, serious.. In fact, at some vulcano in some ocean some organisms live, and cant life without, near the enourmous heat of the lava.

4) since the aliens brought us on earth (erich von daniken) it's irrelevant to even have this discussion

5) Elvis Presley

Note, I havent taken time to backup my points, so for a good story and fact i´dd refer to probably thousands of site's on the internet...

[Rudy]

Originally posted by Verthanthi
Due to the rather large size of the universe, I'm convinced there is more life out there. That said, I am willing to accept that it might be far enough away that humans will never encounter it and thus is meaningless to us.

Agreed. And should we ever encounter them, I hope they have chemical weapons.

[TelC@t]

Re: All reasons that we're alone in the universe (and there is an assload!)

Originally posted by FudLe Pucker

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7) safe location (meteors and asteroids often hit planets)
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Scientists are wasting money looking for life on the other planets. Deep in all our minds we realize that we might be all alone. But most of us are and denial, and it's time to just forget it.

By using the word 'often' I assume you are using the time scale of our universe, right? Because so far as I am aware of, the average time interval for a life terminating meteor or asteroid to hit earth is about a few million years.

But then I guess there would be unfortunate planets that get striked twice a year.

Also, it sounds funny that we haven't even landed on our nearest planet, and now we can safely assume there isn't life form on any one of the billions and billions of planets?

Further more, most of living organisms on earth are made of hydrogen carbon, oxyden and nitrogen, it does NOT mean life forms in other parts of universe share the same composition as us. After all the forementioned elements are the most abundant elements on earth. Life form else where could be mainly consist of what's available on other planets. After all, 2 species of animals on earth alone can be completely different ... it's very likely life forms on other planets fundamentally differ from us.

[TelC@t]

BTW if you think Scientists are wasting their time ... then please tell me how ticket sellers, CEOs and lawyers are productive to the human race?