Why finding alien life in Universe is now 'only a matter of time'

[Social Media]

 

Many astronomers are no longer asking whether there is life elsewhere in the Universe.

The question on their minds is instead: when will we find it?

Many are optimistic of detecting life signs on a faraway world within our lifetimes - possibly in the next few years.

And one scientist, leading a mission to Jupiter, goes as far as saying it would be "surprising" if there was no life on one of the planet's icy moons.

Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently detected tantalising hints at life on a planet outside our Solar System - and it has many more worlds in its sights.

Numerous missions that are either underway or about to begin mark a new space race for the biggest scientific discovery of all time.

 

"We live in an infinite Universe, with infinite stars and planets. And it's been obvious to many of us that we can't be the only intelligent life out there," says Prof Catherine Heymans, Scotland's Astronomer Royal.

"We now have the technology and the capability to answer the question of whether we are alone in the cosmos."

The 'Goldilocks zone'

Telescopes can now analyse the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars for signs of chemicals that, on Earth at least, can be produced only by living organisms.

The first flicker of such a discovery occurred earlier this month with the possible sign of a gas that is produced by simple marine organisms on Earth in the atmosphere of a planet named K2-18b, which is 120 light years away.

 

FULL STORY

[Tug]

Hope I’m around when it happens watching the religious nutters will be priceless!

[thaibeachlovers]

Does any sane person actually believe that this one planet we live on is the only one in the universe to have life on it?

[impulse]

I think they're short sighted looking only in the Goldilocks zone. 

 

Life on Earth is carbon based, using liquid water as a universal solvent.  Why can't life on Neptune be silicon based, using liquid methane for the universal solvent?

 

But I guess ya gotta publish what will get your grant money approved.  Because you sure aren't going to monetize life 120 light years away, even if you do find it.

 

[placeholder]

  On 9/30/2023 at 3:57 AM, impulse said:

I think they're short sighted looking only in the Goldilocks zone. 

 

Life on Earth is carbon based, using liquid water as a universal solvent.  Why can't life on Neptune be silicon based, using liquid methane for the universal solvent?

 

But I guess ya gotta publish what will get your grant money approved.

 

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Or maybe scientists understand that there's not a lot of chemistry going on when the temperature is about 60  degrees Kelvin.

[thaibeachlovers]

  On 9/30/2023 at 3:57 AM, impulse said:

I think they're short sighted looking only in the Goldilocks zone. 

 

Life on Earth is carbon based, using liquid water as a universal solvent.  Why can't life on Neptune be silicon based, using liquid methane for the universal solvent?

 

But I guess ya gotta publish what will get your grant money approved.  Because you sure aren't going to monetize life 120 light years away, even if you do find it.

 

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Correct. I've posted before that "life" might be silicone based, or just a cloud of intelligent gas. It might even be mobile vegetation, or algae.

 

BTW, looking at what is going on with the human race now, one sometimes wonders if intelligent life exists on planet earth.

[thaibeachlovers]

  On 9/30/2023 at 1:58 AM, Social Media said:

The question on their minds is instead: when will we find it?

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and having found it, so what? Unless found life has the ability to travel faster than the speed of light, they are going to be in a galaxy far far away, probably for as long as mankind survives.

[impulse]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:01 AM, placeholder said:

Or maybe scientists understand that there's not a lot of chemistry going on when the temperature is about 60  degrees Kelvin.

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So they move real slow.  Maybe scientists should study gub'ment services like the DMV to figure out what to look for.

 

BTW, that doesn't rule out silicon based life on Mercury with molten sulfur as the solvent.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:11 AM, impulse said:

So they move real slow.  Maybe scientists should study gub'ment services like the DMV to figure out what to look for.

 

BTW, that doesn't rule out silicon based life on Mercury with molten sulfur as the solvent.

 

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Unfortunately, seems that some on here only see life that conforms to earth's environment as "life".

[impulse]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:09 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

and having found it, so what? Unless found life has the ability to travel faster than the speed of light, they are going to be in a galaxy far far away, probably for as long as mankind survives.

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I miss the days of my youth when I thought curiosity was enough to justify spending time and money on the wonders of the universe. 

 

That got beaten right out of me at my first corporate budget meeting.  Payout and ROI became the name of the game.  Kind of sad, really.

[thaibeachlovers]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:16 AM, impulse said:

I miss the days of my youth when I thought curiosity was enough to justify spending time and money on the wonders of the universe. 

 

That got beaten right out of me at my first corporate budget meeting.  Payout and ROI became the name of the game.  Kind of sad, really.

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Perhaps back then there was enough money to do so, but now the cupboard is bare and I for one oppose borrowing money to investigate things that will make zero difference to people's lives.

[KhunBENQ]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:09 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

and having found it, so what? Unless found life has the ability to travel faster than the speed of light, they are going to be in a galaxy far far away, probably for as long as mankind survives.

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Astronomy is all "pure science" without any practical implications.

Voyager1 travels for 46 years now and has reached a distance less than one light day (24 billion km; 15 billion mi).

It will  exhaust it's last bit of energy in two years or so.

It's expected to travel 40000 years until passing another star which is 17.1 lights years from earth at a distance of 1.6 light years.

 

And they are writing about primitive life 125 light years away.

Until super warp is invented it's all a nice past time.

 

[ezzra]

I already did found an outer planet alien, she's living with me...

[WhatMeWorry]

Alien life is already here:

[Chongalulu]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:22 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Perhaps back then there was enough money to do so, but now the cupboard is bare and I for one oppose borrowing money to investigate things that will make zero difference to people's lives.

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If you only investigate things you THINK will make a difference history tells you you'd have missed out on some major discoveries. How can you judge now what might be useful in the future? Quantum mechanics would have been classified as that but look at an article in today's Times for an understanding of what that's leading to. 

There was a bloke in a cave who once said why are you bothering to go much further than your immediate surroundings...?

[Chomper Higgot]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:22 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Perhaps back then there was enough money to do so, but now the cupboard is bare and I for one oppose borrowing money to investigate things that will make zero difference to people's lives.

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Taxes were higher back then.

[wombat]

  On 9/30/2023 at 3:41 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Does any sane person actually believe that this one planet we live on is the only one in the universe to have life on it?

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why would you bother saying hullo?

[wombat]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:02 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

one sometimes wonders if intelligent life exists on planet earth.

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thats why its always being looked for elsewhere...there aint none here.

[Trippy]

As soon as we invent and use warp speed, the Vulcans will contact us. No reason to go looking for them now.

[richard_smith237]

We are one planet, circling a star which is one of 200-400 billion Solar Systems in the Milky Way which is one of an estimated 2 Trillion Galaxies in the observable Universe. 

 

Thats 8 quintillion (800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) Solar Systems... 

 

The probability of intelligent life in the Universe is high.

 

The probability of witnessing such life is an impossibility until we (or an intelligent alien life form) achieve methods to travel significantly faster than the speed of light.

 

 

 

 

[animalmagic]

  On 9/30/2023 at 4:02 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Correct. I've posted before that "life" might be silicone based, or just a cloud of intelligent gas. It might even be mobile vegetation, or algae.

 

BTW, looking at what is going on with the human race now, one sometimes wonders if intelligent life exists on planet earth.

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This is how we know there is intelligent life out there............they haven't made contact with Earth!

[Tropposurfer]

Tens of thousands or perhaps a million years from now after when we have poisoned our planet and died out as a species, and then after hundreds of millions of years the earth will have buried the detritus of human existence and there will be no trace of us. 

 

[Grumpy one]

  On 9/30/2023 at 5:01 AM, ezzra said:

I already did found an outer planet alien, she's living with me...

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I believe the rest of the family reside just down from me  

[Jimjim1]

  On 9/30/2023 at 5:01 AM, ezzra said:

I already did found an outer planet alien, she's living with me...

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Sheeet thanks for confirming that I married her sister

[Srikcir]

  On 9/30/2023 at 7:22 AM, richard_smith237 said:

We are one planet, circling a star which is one of 200-400 billion Solar Systems in the Milky Way which is one of an estimated 2 Trillion Galaxies in the observable Universe. 

 

Thats 8 quintillion (800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) Solar Systems... 

 

The probability of intelligent life in the Universe is high.

 

The probability of witnessing such life is an impossibility until we (or an intelligent alien life form) achieve methods to travel significantly faster than the speed of light.

 

 

 

 

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Consider "intelligent life" has had the opportunity to arise over the almost 14 billion years of our universe. Home sapiens on Earth only appeared 300,000 years ago and current brain shape developed 100,000 years ago.

Also, what we may observe "now" (observable light taking millions/billions of years to travel the universe) may not be seen to support life, ie., in the goldilocks zone, didn't mean it might not have or can't in the foreseeable future. The Earth itself was a virtual ice ball enduring Sturtian glaciation for about 60 million years. 

[ALLSEEINGEYE]

Yeah life on other planets is all well and good. I'll get excited when they finally find at least one other flat planet. Earth can't be the only one can it???? ????

[Srikcir]

  On 9/30/2023 at 5:18 AM, WhatMeWorry said:

Alien life is already here:

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You're reputation points of "45" says it all.

[Yellowtail]

  On 9/30/2023 at 6:46 AM, Chomper Higgot said:

Taxes were higher back then.

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Only on the poor

[Srikcir]

  On 9/30/2023 at 3:57 AM, impulse said:

Why can't life on Neptune be silicon based, using liquid methane for the universal solvent?

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Methane is inert to silicon atoms unless there is photochemical excitation (electron excitation from light) that creates a "methylsilylene polymer." That might make a great battery but unlikely life.

Note also that there is only about 1,000th of the sunlight received by Earth that reaches Neptune. 

[KhunLA]

Pretty sure some already found us, and smartly, don't want to socialize.

 

No sense finding if we can travel to.