Study: Maybe we can’t find aliens because they’ve all died already

washingtonpost.com ^ | January 22 at 12:27 PM | Rachel Feltman

[Trumpinator]

Study: Maybe we can’t find aliens because they’ve all died already

By Rachel Feltman January 22 at 12:27 PM

he hunt for extraterrestrial life is one of humanity's most exciting endeavors. The pieces are all falling into place: We're finding more and more planets outside of our own solar system, and soon the James Webb Telescope will give us unprecedented looks at these distant worlds. We've populated Mars with robots looking for signs of ancient habitability. Orbiters dive through the icy geysers of ocean-covered moons in hopes of catching some life-giving minerals. Our radio telescopes are tuned in to mysterious stars, listening for the sounds of a hustling and bustling civilization.

In spite all of that, we've yet to find a single measly microbe off-world. So where is everybody?

In a new study published in Astrobiology, researchers from the Australian National University offer up one possible explanation: Maybe all of the other life in our neighborhood has already come and gone.

[ETL]

But endless threads and posts in support of an enemy like Putin are OK?

[norwaypinesavage]

I first heard hyper ventilating like this more than a half century ago. Then, the cult worshipers were talking about nuclear war, not global warming. That was when people were building fallout shelters in their back yards, and children were taught in school how to hide under their desks when the bomb went off. The theory then was that civilizations only lasted long enough to invent nuclear weapons, and then they destroyed themselves. Thus, the probability was too remote for any two civilizations to develop the ability to communicate with each other before they destroyed themselves.

[Graybeard58]

Maybe they died during Noah’s flood?

Maybe that means that umm... God killed them???

*******************************************************

Read The Book of Enoch from The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament.

[Graybeard58]

Giants 50 cubits tall (about 150 feet)

[Admin Moderator]

Quit spamming the site.

Period.

[OKSooner]

Yeah... yeah, that’s right!!

[ETL]

Well, I guess that answered the question.

[Safrguns]

>>> Read The Book of Enoch from The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament.

OH NOW... There ya go!... stealin my thunder!!!

lol.. Thanks for making my point :)

[backwoods-engineer]

As a serious Christian, I can't disagree with that, but I was putting it in secular, scientific terms for our FRiends who don't have the faith background to help them to this conclusion.

By the way, Ward and Brownlee are atheists, and came to the same conclusion as Christian astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzales: There aren't any other Earths in this galaxy, and maybe not in the universe at large, but we will never know anything about the latter.

[backwoods-engineer]

The electromagnetic spectrum is a poor way to communicate over interstellar or galactic distances. So what else is there? Who knows, but that isn’t it.

Indeed, it is. Silly pseudo-scientific stories about other civilizations watching "I Love Lucy" and learning about us are nothing but bilge, and as an RF engineer of some 30 years experience, I have written an article to debunk such nonsense.

[El Cid]

Agreed - and Agreed. Thanks.

[backwoods-engineer]

And it won't do any putative aliens any good anyway; our signals will be well below the noise floor.

[-YYZ-]

“Before Mars lost its atmosphere many say it could have supported life.”

Not only that, but it may indeed have supported life, might even still. We have only (literally) scratched its surface with the probes that we have sent so far. If there is still life on Mars, it seems likely that it might be found in pockets of liquid water under the ice caps, or deep underground (away from the near vacuum of the surface, and the pounding by the sun’s UV rays). And our probes have detected structures in rocks which *may* possibly have been created by living organisms.

[IC Ken]

re>Not only that, but it may indeed have supported life, might even still.

Yeah but if it is microscopic it will last a week in the media. Seems they have found some stuff lifelike on meteors like that but for full impact media would want a civilization.

[PIF]

I have it on good authority that “I Love Lucy,” “The Arthur Godfrey Show,” plus movies like Hellzapoppin’ and doing big box at local multiplex over near Ross 128.

I’m not certain but I think these and many others were picked up and later transmitted by the GSV (System Class) “If You Know What’s Good For You, Don’t Bother Me” while passing some lights off this system.

The shows were such a hit with the over two billion people on board at the time the ship Mind renamed itself If “You Know What’s Good For You, Don’t Bother Me, I’m Watching TV”

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks LucyT.

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[TigersEye]

Are there aliens "out there"? We have not been lucky so far, but our sample size is so vanishingly small compared to the work area, we can draw no definitive conclusion.

Your assessment is exactly what I was thinking after reading "In spite all of that, ..." All what? We've barely gotten out of bed and wiped the sleep out of our eyes when it comes to searching for life in the "universe."

That said...

Imagine that I am looking for a rare blue spotted spider the size of a pin head.

Some years ago I was camping with a friend. While he tended the campfire I laid down on the ground with my head about a foot from a Juniper bush. My eyes drifted towards a Juniper branch and on a needle of that bush I noticed a tiny movement. It turned out to be a spider slightly smaller than the width of the Juniper needle and slightly paler green. That would be about 1 mm in size. I had to wonder if anyone had ever seen a 'Juniper needle spider' before.

[Admin Moderator]

Good.

[ETL]

Good for the Putinistas.

[null and void]