We are not alone: 'trillions' of planets could be supporting life

Times Online ^ | 02/15/09 | Mark Henderson

[samtheman]

“You probably also want to fire off a high-speed little spacecraft, to get there in a couple of thousand years if we can speed it up a bit, and sit and wait for it to send back some pictures. Someone’ll be sitting at a laptop a thousand years later and it’ll be 'OK here it comes, we’ve got an email'.”

More likely what will happen is this:

We launch a probe that will take a thousand years to reach its planetary target. But a hundred years later, we're able to launch probes that are 10 times faster. And a hundred years after that, probes that are 100 times faster. So by the time that first probe sends back it's "email", it will be an quaint historical artifact, nothing more.

[Soothesayer]

Which one of those planets will bail us out?

[SmallGovRepub]

I think it is more likely than not that there is life on other plants. The vast majority wouldn't have life though and most that do have life would have very primitive forms of life. I wouldn't think life on other planets is common necessarily, just that in an infinite universe with untold numbers of galaxies there has to be life on some of these planets. Some of it is probably intelligent life. There are probably even planets out there where life has evolved much more than life here and planets where life evolved as much or more than it has here million of years ago and now there is no life. It's just hard fro me to believe that in an infinite universe with so many planets that this is the only one that has had life.

[KevinDavis]

Vulcan??? Andoria?? Chulack???

[uglybiker]

With my luck, the green chicks would all be vegan lesbians. :-P

[going hot]

Then you simply get them interested in some meat.

[SmallGovRepub]

“Moses 1:33 And worlds without number have I created.”

Sorry, I'd put about as much stock in that as I would Scientology writings.

[uglybiker]

Ya mean turn 'em into watermelons?

Green on the outside....red on the inside?

Okay. I'll shut up, now.

[Cincinatus]

[going hot]

The possibilities are endless.

[CowboyJay]

When someone comes up with concrete proof of intelligent life on earth, ping me.

[Islander7]

We are not alone!

[phatus maximus]

Is that the Hulk’s daughter? Ouch to the unlucky fella who scorns that one!!

[MosesKnows]

Then it should be no problem to prove out just one

It would be nearly impossible to locate one for the exact same reason you feel it is possible. The large numbers can cause confusion.

Once you realize that when we consider space we must also consider time. Calculating the possibility that other life exist in the universe makes it almost a certainty. However, calculating the possibility that life forms would cross paths in both space and time that allowed proof the other existed makes it a virtual impossibility.

The key to accepting this is to acknowledge that space is virtually devoid of all matter. We fool ourselves by looking up at the sky on a clear night and seeing billions of objects. We see these as a 2-D picture with no real appreciation for the time that separates what we are seeing.

Given that the number 100 represents all of the known universe ask a scientist what part of that 100 is actual matter. Then ask the scientist the size of the universe in distance and then time.

Scientist measure distance in light years. One light year represents the distance light, moving at 186,000 miles per second, travels in 31,536,000 seconds, which is one year.
To calculate one light year in miles we multiply 31,536,000 seconds by 186,000, which yields 5.86 trillion miles.

The universe is very large. Recalling that one light year is nearly 6 trillion miles the observable matter in the universe is at least 93 billion light years across. For comparison, the diameter of a typical galaxy is only 30,000 light-years.

As far as time is concerned, the most precise estimate of the universe's age is 13.7 billion years.

What are the odds that different life forms would discover each other once you consider space or distance in “light years” and time in “years”?

[Sawdring]

Dr Boss said. "If you have a habitable world sitting around for four, five, ten billion years around another star, it’s inevitable that some sort of life is going to form. It’s like running an experiment with your refrigerator turned off: eventually things are going to grow in there.

In the refrigerator you already have life. When you turn the refrigerator off the life that is already in there will start growing. You have to create life from non-life, not life from life. So it is not quiet like a refrigerator.

[NonValueAdded]

Well, let’s hope one of them is getting it right.

[Sawdring]

Calculating the possibility that other life exist in the universe makes it almost a certainty.

How does one calculate the possibility that other life exists when we don't know how life is created?

[ronnie raygun]

Trillions of planets that are capable of harbouring life
OH good! get me out of here!

[dragnet2]

As Enrico Fermi famously asked many years ago, “where is everybody?”

Like those that sailed across the vast oceans years ago in primitive ships...They had not a clue anyone else existed, or what they'd find, until they actually discovered them.

[dragnet2]

Trillions?? Then it should be no problem to prove out just one, eh?

Well no, it probably won't be, but it's not like going down to the street to the local auto parts, looking for that specific part.

In this case, great distances are involved. In order to prove this it will take more advances in technology, observation, and searching, and most of all, it will take time. Like those that dared sail across the oceans many years ago, it took time.

Look how long it took this species just to travel to our closest neighbor, the moon. What did that take, thousands of years of gawking at the moon for generations until we were able to actually make the trip?