Life on other planets?

[Innit]

Do you believe that it is possible that there may be life on other planets, in other galaxies elsewhere in the universe?

 

I believe that this may be possible. The Earth is a planet with the characteristics of having life - Good distance from the sun, good composition of atmosphere etc... I'm sure there are other planets out there with these characteristics.

 

In addition, do you believe it will ever be possible for humans to be able to prove life on other planets, seeing as they are so far away, and technology may not reach such a level?

 

It is said that the Milky Way Galaxy will soon merge with the Andromeda galaxy in 5 billion years. By this time, civilization on Earth may have ceased, and if it were to live up to that point, it would most probably not live through the merge. If this were to happen, however, then perhaps new civilization would emerge on newly discovered planets etc...

 

It's all a bit of a dream right now, but it could become a reality, and may already be one...

[fattyjwoods]

yea it's possible although that during the time when the earth was created everything and everything was balanced. A little bit too much of something and there would be no life. Say do much heat, or too little heat or too much methane or too much carbon.

 

so yes, its possible but the odds are stacked against it. Cause if there are any intelligent life around they surley would have replyed to our radio signals (SETI.)

[D H]

Cause if there are any intelligent life around they surley would have replyed to our radio signals (SETI.)

 

They almost certainly would not have responded, particularly to SETI. Except for the one-time broadcast of the Arecibo signal, SETI listens for signs of intellgent life. It does not broadcast. SETI "listens" with very narrow beam radio antennae. They have not heard scratch yet. Then again, the SETI range is very short (a few hundred light years) compared to the size of the Milky Way (100,000 light years). Just because we haven't heard anything does not mean there is no intelligent life "out there". All not hearing anything means is that we haven't heard anything. They might be too far away. They might be using some technology we do not have. The might even be quite close and using the technology we have at hand, but we just don't know how to hear them.

 

The world is broadcasting radio signals, and quite a bit. However, current transmissions are nearly indistinguishable from noise. Our Wi-Fi and cellphone towers use spread-spectrum technology, which looks amazingly like white noise. Digital TV signals will soon be encoded and compressed. These signals are indistinguishable from noise without a-priori knowledge of how to decrypt these signals. A remote intelligent civilization could not tell we are here if they missed our first eighty years of broadcasting. Similarly, we will only be able to detect signals from some remote intelligent beings that are very close to us and are in the infancy stages of high technology.

 

That said, I am not a big believer in the Drake equations. Intelligent life, if it is out there, is in a galaxy far, far away.

[Innit]

yea it's possible although that during the time when the earth was created everything and everything was balanced. A little bit too much of something and there would be no life. Say do much heat, or too little heat or too much methane or too much carbon.

 

so yes, its possible but the odds are stacked against it. Cause if there are any intelligent life around they surley would have replyed to our radio signals (SETI.)

 

You're right. But do you suppose that organisms would be able to adapt to their environment as they evolved? Perhaps if there was naturally high methane levels, then it would be a problem at first, but through time and evolution, they could possibly adapt?

[rbouchard47]

You're right. But do you suppose that organisms would be able to adapt to their environment as they evolved? Perhaps if there was naturally high methane levels, then it would be a problem at first, but through time and evolution, they could possibly adapt?

 

it is possible, but these life forms would be be very different because homo sapiens cannot live in other conditions

[h4tt3n]

Life may adapt to the surrounding environment, but the opposite might just be a bit more plausible: that life over time changes the environment to fit its needs, just as life has done on here earth billions of years ago. Pre-life earth may have looked a bit like present-time venus, and today it is completely different thanks to for instance photosynthetis.

 

So, we may assume that if life emerges on a planet - even a very hostile one - it may completely change the environment of that planet within a few 100 millions or a few billions years to fit whatever needs it has. And if that life is carbon based and uses water as a solvent it will probably work towards an environment similar to ours.

 

(May use chlorine as an oxidizing agent instead of oxygen, though ^^)