Ask Ethan: Would An Alien Civilization Classify Earth As An 'Interesting' Planet?

Forbes ^ | 10/19/19 | Ethan Siegel

[LibWhacker]

All across the Universe, trillions of galaxies can be seen, with each one typically containing billions and billions of stars. Here on Earth, life not only arose, thrived, and became complex and differentiated, but intelligent, technologically advanced, and even spacefaring, to a degree. But these last advances — taking us into the space and information ages — are extremely recent, and space is enormous. If an alien civilization saw us, would we even appear interesting from their perspective? Tayte Taliaferro wants to know, asking:

"I was thinking about the projection of light through space. My curtain was open and I saw the stars and something from a book popped into my head. It had said that the stars we see are basically reruns. The light is from so long ago, we don't even know if the star still exists or not."

[adorno]

And scientists said that there was no life in the bottom of the oceans, no life could survive near volcanic chimneys, etc.

Scientists have been wrong many times before. But, those scientists were wrong in areas where they had not done real research; mostly guesswork.

Still, life found near the bottom of the oceans and volcanic chimneys, are of this Earth, and had plenty of time to adapt and thrive. Can't really say the same for the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.

[adorno]

One in a million?

Try one in a quadrillion.

Just because there are trillions of galaxies and perhaps quadrillions of stars, does not mean that the conditions and materials and perfection in alignments would be common, nor would the events needed be necessarily common.

[minnesota_bound]

We are a backwater in the galaxy.

[minnesota_bound]

Good for only to be hunted.....

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks LibWhacker.

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