Do you believe in possibility of life in other galaxies?

[bearnard1609]

 

With over a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. It is hard for me to believe that there is not at least one other solar system with life. Especially, when some scientists claim that they have already found some exoplanets that can be like Earth.

[Vancanneyt Sander]

The odds for that are big. We now have over 4500 exoplanets discovered  and that’s only a very small fraction of the universe so it’s likely there are trillions of exoplanets out there. If a few are in a “habital zone” we might not be the only planet with life but because of the distance we can’t prove it now. 

[bearnard1609]

2 hours ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

The odds for that are big. We now have over 4500 exoplanets discovered  and that’s only a very small fraction of the universe so it’s likely there are trillions of exoplanets out there. If a few are in a “habital zone” we might not be the only planet with life but because of the distance we can’t prove it now. 

Yes, the chance is very high to find some forms of life ( even probably intelligent ) on these exoplanets. Moreover, some scientists claim that there are some planets that remind Earth. However, we should`t hurry with conclusions, these planets are too far and the only think that can remind Earth it`s the size of this Earth- alike planet.

Edited April 9, 2021 by bearnard1609

[Jim Sinclair]

Detection of an oxygen atmosphere would be an indication of photosynthesis. I don't know if any have been found yet but reducing atmospheres are much more common.

[Archmonoth]

7 hours ago, bearnard1609 said:

 

With over a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. It is hard for me to believe that there is not at least one other solar system with life. Especially, when some scientists claim that they have already found some exoplanets that can be like Earth.

 

There are 3 possibilities.

 

1. We are first: In any temporal arc, there is always first, and we could be it, finding only empty rocks. 

 

2: We are the last: Life has bloomed and faded, ad we are the last to holding the torch. We could find ruins in every direction.

 

3: We are not the first or the last: This means we are a middle child, and life is far stranger than we imagined. There could be older and younger life forms of life. and they could be broadcasting right now, but we can't understand. 

 

Also, the frequency of life existing on a planet is unknown, and there could be eons between occurrences.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Archmonoth

[bearnard1609]

On 4/9/2021 at 7:04 PM, Archmonoth said:

 

There are 3 possibilities.

 

1. We are first: In any temporal arc, there is always first, and we could be it, finding only empty rocks. 

 

2: We are the last: Life has bloomed and faded, ad we are the last to holding the torch. We could find ruins in every direction.

 

3: We are not the first or the last: This means we are a middle child, and life is far stranger than we imagined. There could be older and younger life forms of life. and they could be broadcasting right now, but we can't understand. 

 

Also, the frequency of life existing on a planet is unknown, and there could be eons between occurrences.

I even expect some forms of life can be found on Mars .As you all may know there is water ( ice ) on Mars, so there is a possibility to find in that ice some forms of life. Talking about the possibility of existence of life on some of the exoplanets I`ve mentioned before, even if there is a life there we will not get to know wether this life is intelligent or not because these planets are too far. Even if we can travel with the speed of light, it would take years for us to reach these exoplanets.

[Quilloz]

I like to think we're not alone. After all, the universe is vast and the unknown universe is just that- unknown. There's still the possibility of life that we haven't found yet. Heck, maybe there's even life on those exoplanets we have found, but our lack of knowledge on those planets means we don't know for sure. It can go either way.

[Archmonoth]

2 hours ago, bearnard1609 said:

I even expect some forms of life can be found on Mars .As you all may know there is water ( ice ) on Mars, so there is a possibility to find in that ice some forms of life. Talking about the possibility of existence of life on some of the exoplanets I`ve mentioned before, even if there is a life there we will not get to know wether this life is intelligent or not because these planets are too far. Even if we can travel with the speed of light, it would take years for us to reach these exoplanets.

 

The temporal aspect of space travel is indeed a hurdle to overcome. Perhaps our bodies may never reach the radiated shores of Cygnus-3, but our machines will.

 

There may also be non-human Earth life which does better in space and travel/exploration than human beings. Perhaps we colonize space with our viruses and plants, or bugs and bacteria. We could simply be helping those who are already better equipped for the long stretch of space travel. 

 

Here is a wiki about the Interplanetary Transport Network: Interplanetary Transport Network - Wikipedia

 

My understanding is that traveling in space, the solar system, (perhaps galaxy at some point) can be done by leveraging these these gravitation features. We would need large machine minds for calculating this infrastructure for long distance travel. 

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Archmonoth

[bearnard1609]

21 hours ago, Archmonoth said:

 

The temporal aspect of space travel is indeed a hurdle to overcome. Perhaps our bodies may never reach the radiated shores of Cygnus-3, but our machines will.

 

There may also be non-human Earth life which does better in space and travel/exploration than human beings. Perhaps we colonize space with our viruses and plants, or bugs and bacteria. We could simply be helping those who are already better equipped for the long stretch of space travel. 

 

Here is a wiki about the Interplanetary Transport Network: Interplanetary Transport Network - Wikipedia

 

My understanding is that traveling in space, the solar system, (perhaps galaxy at some point) can be done by leveraging these these gravitation features. We would need large machine minds for calculating this infrastructure for long distance travel. 

 

However, it will take much time for us to develop a spacecraft that can travel to one of the exoplanets. I also believe in possibility that some non-human civilization may have something more powerful ( I mean spacecraft ) so they can contact somehow with us and we would know that we  are not alone

[jtripp6]

 the Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion.

Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief.

[Christopher S.]

Considering that life has fundamental building blocks, but a very, very narrow margin for a suitable, habitable environment, I can imagine people of all kinds having disparate opinions and beliefs. Logically, I think life can manifest anywhere that several conditions are met. Considering, however, our inability to practically and rapidly prove that life exists somewhere outside of the Solar System means that gathering empirical data is a long-term challenge; we can only rely on guesses at this stage.

Is the lack of absolute proof really a bad thing? There is no present need to make contact with an intelligent life form elsewhere in the universe, no present need to seek out a new planet to colonize, and certainly no end to the search for life which satisfies our curiosities, and furthermore validates certain conventions we've held towards biochemistry, habitability, and organic resilience.

To speak to the comment above about "no evidentiary reason", that's unfortunately wrong - inferences and deductions based on real information and data certainly counts as evidence in favor of a hypothesis that life exists elsewhere. Venus for example has an atmosphere composed of certain gasses(methane for example) at a particular ratio which strongly suggests that the planet harbors, or used to harbor micro-organisms and/or "plant-based" life. It is certainly quite possible that the ratio of gasses is in part due to the presence of life, via cellular respiration or the breakdown of dead organic matter.

Truly, there is no logical reason to disbelieve that life exists elsewhere; we have not scoured every molecule of the universe, and never will. For the same reason you might call that hyperbole and that we can infer the absence of life, you can infer a possibility of its presence too. My confidence towards either side of this will not shift until our fundamental understanding of life's genesis is experimentally or even totally naturally proofed.

[Archmonoth]

6 hours ago, jtripp6 said:

 the Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion.

Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief.

 

Perhaps then 1 of the other possibilities satisfies your observation? 

1. We are the first

2. We are the last.

3. We don't have enough understanding/information to communicate with existing life forms, if there are any. (neither last or first, and address the definitions of life))

 

Is there another possibility I am missing? 

 

Also, belief is an expression of credence (how certain you are). I am 85% certain these 3 possibilities cover most abstract possibilities.

[Ruston]

I think you will find that religions assume the existence of a deity.  The S in SETI stands for search which implies that they are looking for something that might or might not exist.  I think the Drake equation is a good effort to try to estimate the chances of life elsewhere.  The factor that worries me is the one at the end which defines how long a message sending civilisation exists.  Maybe such civilisations are fairly short lived and that there is no one transmitting at the moment.  Taking the current state of earth at the moment do you believe we will still be here in say 10,000 years time?

What we do know is that, on this planet, life pervades every possible environment from boiling water geysers to deep in the permafrost.  I find it almost inconceivable that it doesn't also pervade the rest of the universe albeit not necessarily as intelligent life.  Molecular biology is now indicating that the step from primitive (prokaryotic) life to more advanced (eukaryotic) life was a wildly unlikely fluke.

Maybe Perseverance will throw light on the subject in the not too distant future.

[Alien Hybrid]

Life has already been found in our solar system! On July 30 1976 by the Viking lander. (not a conspiracy theory)!NASA denied 4 of 5 tests, the first of which detected microbial respiration. NASA has been a political arm of the “Military, industrial complex “  (et al Dwight D. Eisenhower) for far too long. 
Panspermia! Ever heard of it? Look it up! One need only look at the oceans below the surface of Enceladus spewing organic material onto the surface, Europa as well! Europa has a predominantly oxygen atmosphere! That doesn’t just happen by chance!  High probability of extremophiles surviving in the upper atmosphere of Venus, which by the way, is an analog of earth, and several billion years ago looked very much like earth. Mars was covered with oceans until it’s core slowed and its atmosphere was blasted away by solar winds. Which would happen to, Terra or Gaia or whatever morons like to call it, if it’s magnetosphere were to go bye bye! Comets carry all the organic material for life. Perhaps even life itself!? Life is tenacious, prolific and probably spread across the entire universe!! 
That being said, why the freaking hell do we have to always separate science and God?? NO science disproves the existence of God. What is a day to an infinite being? There is only one thing infinite. God and God’s dimension. The universe is just one and it’s flat! Imagine a holographic baseball card. Everything else comes from God’s dimension. There is no “infinite” singularity at the bottom of a black hole! When science and mathematics break down? Oh, we’ll just say it’s infinite! Loop quantum gravity, spin foam, something more fundamental than quarks related to space time, on the order of a Plank length, is probably closer to the answer. There isn’t any dark matter or b.s. dark energy, because gravity is isn’t really a Force. It’s more. Anyway all of this and more than y’all want to read show that all of this is not an accident. 2nd law of thermodynamics? Explain how the universe is ordered and not chaotic if not for a guiding hand, and out of a trillion quadrillion planets and moons we are likely on one of VERY few that can support INTELLIGENT life. Probably most in any habitable zone are tidally locked. How many have a moon just the right size at just the right distance with just the right spin and wobble. Sounds like a Creator to me! And the last! It’s the highest consent to believe that He created just one species besides what? Angels? I have much more but would love y’all’s input! Thanks! Nuff said!

[bearnard1609]

16 hours ago, Alien Hybrid said:

Life has already been found in our solar system! On July 30 1976 by the Viking lander. (not a conspiracy theory)!NASA denied 4 of 5 tests, the first of which detected microbial respiration. NASA has been a political arm of the “Military, industrial complex “  (et al Dwight D. Eisenhower) for far too long. 
Panspermia! Ever heard of it? Look it up! One need only look at the oceans below the surface of Enceladus spewing organic material onto the surface, Europa as well! Europa has a predominantly oxygen atmosphere! That doesn’t just happen by chance!  High probability of extremophiles surviving in the upper atmosphere of Venus, which by the way, is an analog of earth, and several billion years ago looked very much like earth. Mars was covered with oceans until it’s core slowed and its atmosphere was blasted away by solar winds. Which would happen to, Terra or Gaia or whatever morons like to call it, if it’s magnetosphere were to go bye bye! Comets carry all the organic material for life. Perhaps even life itself!? Life is tenacious, prolific and probably spread across the entire universe!! 
That being said, why the freaking hell do we have to always separate science and God?? NO science disproves the existence of God. What is a day to an infinite being? There is only one thing infinite. God and God’s dimension. The universe is just one and it’s flat! Imagine a holographic baseball card. Everything else comes from God’s dimension. There is no “infinite” singularity at the bottom of a black hole! When science and mathematics break down? Oh, we’ll just say it’s infinite! Loop quantum gravity, spin foam, something more fundamental than quarks related to space time, on the order of a Plank length, is probably closer to the answer. There isn’t any dark matter or b.s. dark energy, because gravity is isn’t really a Force. It’s more. Anyway all of this and more than y’all want to read show that all of this is not an accident. 2nd law of thermodynamics? Explain how the universe is ordered and not chaotic if not for a guiding hand, and out of a trillion quadrillion planets and moons we are likely on one of VERY few that can support INTELLIGENT life. Probably most in any habitable zone are tidally locked. How many have a moon just the right size at just the right distance with just the right spin and wobble. Sounds like a Creator to me! And the last! It’s the highest consent to believe that He created just one species besides what? Angels? I have much more but would love y’all’s input! Thanks! Nuff said!

It was very interesting and I really liked your answer!) I thought, that because off high temperature and high pressure  existence of life on Venus is impossible. But I believed that there is a chance to find some forms of life on the red planet as water was discovered there.Actually, you gave so much important and interesting information for me, so I`ve hot a lot to figure out for myself)

[jtripp6]

On 4/15/2021 at 11:58 AM, Archmonoth said:

 

Perhaps then 1 of the other possibilities satisfies your observation? 

1. We are the first

2. We are the last.

3. We don't have enough understanding/information to communicate with existing life forms, if there are any. (neither last or first, and address the definitions of life))

 

Is there another possibility I am missing? 

 

Also, belief is an expression of credence (how certain you are). I am 85% certain these 3 possibilities cover most abstract possibilities.

according to that, there should be cows on mars!  

If we don’t know the actual probability of something, it is common to use 50%. If we do that, we can prove that there are probably farm animals on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are chickens on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are cows on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are horses on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are ducks on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are goats on Mars.

The chance that there are none of those animals on Mars is 0.5*0.5*0.5*0.5*0.5 = 0.03125 = 3.125%and thats 

If you want more certainty, just add more farm animals to the calculation. never use math to solve science. your belief that there might be life out there is just that. none has ever been detected in 40 years, and thats the facts.

[Archmonoth]

5 hours ago, jtripp6 said:

according to that, there should be cows on mars!  

If we don’t know the actual probability of something, it is common to use 50%. If we do that, we can prove that there are probably farm animals on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are chickens on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are cows on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are horses on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are ducks on Mars.

There is a 50% chance there are goats on Mars.

The chance that there are none of those animals on Mars is 0.5*0.5*0.5*0.5*0.5 = 0.03125 = 3.125%and thats 

If you want more certainty, just add more farm animals to the calculation. never use math to solve science. your belief that there might be life out there is just that. none has ever been detected in 40 years, and thats the facts.

We can look with telescopes and the % equals 0% when no cows, horses, ducks, goats, or chickens are seen on Mars. 

 

When we get new information, probability changes. My post was about the temporal order. I am not assigning any % to these.

 

I was assigning 85% to my level of certainty for what the possibilities are, not the % of possibilities themselves.  If life was a race, and we haven't seen any other racers, we might be late, we might be early, or the race is spread out so far we can't see the other racers yet, if there are any.

 

Sorry for the confusion, I don't have any idea what the % of life/chance is in the universe. 

Edited April 17, 2021 by Archmonoth

[bearnard1609]

On 4/17/2021 at 4:00 AM, Archmonoth said:

We can look with telescopes and the % equals 0% when no cows, horses, ducks, goats, or chickens are seen on Mars. 

 

When we get new information, probability changes. My post was about the temporal order. I am not assigning any % to these.

 

I was assigning 85% to my level of certainty for what the possibilities are, not the % of possibilities themselves.  If life was a race, and we haven't seen any other racers, we might be late, we might be early, or the race is spread out so far we can't see the other racers yet, if there are any.

 

Sorry for the confusion, I don't have any idea what the % of life/chance is in the universe. 

The usage of such telescopes like Ariel space telescope or the most expensive telescope by NASA James Webb Space Telescope will give us a hint at the possibility of another forms of life that can exist somewhere in other galaxy or atleast define more accurate the planets that can remind Earth.
https://www.skyrora.com/blog/uk-space-news
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope

Edited April 19, 2021 by bearnard1609

[Kowaco]

Define life

[bearnard1609]

5 hours ago, Kowaco said:

Define life

I don`t think that we can define life with the help of telescopes. However, as I have already mentioned the usage of modern and advanced telescopes can give us a hint where the life can be or open some new exoplanets that can be Earth-alike.

[Jacob_CX_Cooper]

Life is rather a broad term, but even if I don't get into this term, I can state that life in other galaxies can exist. No matter what it is: people, animals, or bacteria — it's life, and discovering it will be the beginning of a new stage in space exploration. Unfortunately, we have no power to do it yet...

[Archmonoth]

1 hour ago, Jacob_CX_Cooper said:

Life is rather a broad term, but even if I don't get into this term, I can state that life in other galaxies can exist. No matter what it is: people, animals, or bacteria — it's life, and discovering it will be the beginning of a new stage in space exploration. Unfortunately, we have no power to do it yet...

 

The broader the definition of life, the more likely it is to exist. Vagueness of the term will result in a broad enough net to catch a dead fish. . 

 

If you are interested in exploring life, the ocean has many creatures attempting to crawl into the cracks of high pressure and reduced light conditions. 

 

Plants and virus while in space, react and behave differently, often growing faster, perhaps due to closer proximity to the Sun. 

 

I personally see the request to define life as vague gesturing at the world, and then asking for precise details. We might not have strange enough eyes to see alien life, except as  chemical turbulence soup.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Archmonoth

[bearnard1609]

On 5/11/2021 at 4:57 PM, Jacob_CX_Cooper said:

Life is rather a broad term, but even if I don't get into this term, I can state that life in other galaxies can exist. No matter what it is: people, animals, or bacteria — it's life, and discovering it will be the beginning of a new stage in space exploration. Unfortunately, we have no power to do it yet...

It will take much time for us to make appropriate technology that will allow us travelling to other galaxies. At that moment we can only assume presume about the possibility of existence of life somewhere in other galaxies.

[MindBody]

I would ask the moderator to please delete my last reply as my attempt to reply to another post did not work.
Now in terms of framing a scientific question the form of this question is "Do you believe in the possibility of life on other planets"?
The only scientific answer must be yes as we have not been there to check for ourselves.
The question is not "do you believe in life on other planets", so jtrip6 has a problem with his position.
As for the Drake Equation - it is an early attempt to frame a scientifically meaningful question, a null hypothesis, for further exploration. It is far from meaningless.
Wikipedia gives a reasonable summary here"The Drake equation amounts to a summary of the factors affecting the likelihood that we might detect radio-communication from intelligent extraterrestrial life.^[1][5][14] The last four parameters, f_l, f_i, f_c, and L, are not known and are very difficult to estimate, with values ranging over many orders of magnitude (see criticism). Therefore, the usefulness of the Drake equation is not in the solving, but rather in the contemplation of all the various concepts which scientists must incorporate when considering the question of life elsewhere,^[1][3] and gives the question of life elsewhere a basis for scientific analysis. The equation has helped draw attention to some particular scientific problems related to life in the universe, for example abiogenesis, the development of multi-cellular life, and the development of intelligence itself.^[15]"

[Drax Spacex]

On 4/15/2021 at 4:43 AM, jtripp6 said:

The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith.

Actually the biblical account is that God completed Creation in 6 days.  On the Sabbath, the 7th day, he rested.

But I agree, you can't assign a probability for an event that has never occurred.  And only with a lot of conjecture and presumptive models can you assign a probability for an event that has only occurred once (life in the universe).

Life and its probabilities are interesting questions to ponder.  But not just extraterrestrial but also terrestrial life, specifically humans.  6 million years is how long humans have been on the Earth, according to my reliable source, Alexa.

Imagine an early human 6 million years ago watching birds and imagining how it would be to be able to fly through the air.  Or to look at the Moon and imagine how it would be to walk on it.

And yet in the six million years of mankind, it is only in the last 120 years we have been able to fly through the sky like birds using gliders or airplanes or helicopters, and in the last 52 years we have walked on the Moon.  And what are the odds that we would be living in the span of years when these things that men historically dreamed of doing would be finally happen?

p=120/6,000,000=0.00002

And with odds like that, it makes you question the nature of life, perception, and reality.  Or at least it should!