Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: RoosterRedux

No, probably not.

It’s kind if silly to think that we are the only ones out there.


8 posted on 06/23/2019 6:16:01 AM PDT by chris37 (Monday, March 25 2019 is Maga Day!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: chris37

Actually, No. The stuff needed for life to develop is so specialized that it is amazing that there is life at all.

Of they 2000 or so stars that we can see on an average night, the furthest away is 6000 ly away (P Cygni). Almost all the rest are within 1000 ly of our solar system. Most of those are within 200 ly of us. Going by how life on Earth came about, almost all of those are either too young to have developed anything other than single cell life (assuming they have planets), or, already dying and are past the point where they could have. By the theory and observations of life on Earth, it too 3 Billion Years for multi-cell life to form on Earth. Following that (its all we have to go on), with most stars we can see dying by 1 billion, its hard to get advanced civilizations on those stars.

Then you have to have the right elements and chemicals in an abundance supply to have the right conditions for life. Iron for a magnetic field to protect the atmosphere from the solar wind and to protect the life from interstellar radiation. Carbon, Oxygen, and all the rest have to be in an abundant, but, not too abundant amount. The system has to be in a relatively calm part of the galaxy too. We know that at least one of the great die offs of life was caused by the solar system being too close to a Supernova.

So, we are stuck with long lived stars, got to be a second or third generation star (we are all but star stuff as Carl the Pot Head said). Red dwarf stars are too unstable (they tend to flare and release massive amounts of radiation), so, we aren’t left with a whole lot of star systems that meet the needs of advanced civilizations.

But, saying there is life out there, the chances of them actually finding a way around the laws of physics is a whole other branch of science. I am more familiar with the Astronomy.

BUT, say this is all worked around and there is another space faring bunch out there, why would they come to Earth and walk up and down in front of some poor sap who no one is going to believe and make “beep beep” noises in front of him. I feel they would be more discrete.


38 posted on 06/23/2019 9:38:11 AM PDT by Conan the Librarian (The Best in Life is to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and the Dewey Decimal System)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson