Jump to content



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


Social Media

Recommended Posts

7 minutes ago, placeholder said:

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

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.

 

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, 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.

 

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

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, 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.

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.

Edited by impulse
  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, 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.

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.

  • Confused 3
  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, 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.

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...?

  • Like 1
  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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. 

 

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, 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.

 

 

 

 

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. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, impulse said:

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

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. 

  • Like 1
  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.