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To: Popocatapetl
There are between 200 and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, most of which are red dwarfs that would not support life.

I'll give you the first part, there's between 100 and 400 billion stars, but there is NO FIRM NUMBER and those are estimates. But I'm throwing in a BS flag on the "Most of which are red dwards that would not support life".

First off, MOST of the stars aren't red dwarves, and secondly, you're making a supposition that "they can't support life".

You're going to have to show some data to back up both of these statements, and I don't think you can.

In FACT, the EARTH supports life in areas which were previously thought NOT to support life, for instance deep in the oceanse beyond where any life was thought to exist because of the sheer pressure down there, has shown many types of life.

Around "black smokers", also deep in the oceans you will find volcanic vents, allowing extremely poisonous chemicals into the ocean. Around these vents, you will find life, under extreme atmospheric pressures, extremely poisonous environments, and yet there is life.

Under extreme desert conditions where nothing should be alive - temperatures in the Gobi hit 160 degrees in some places, which is enough to kill most bacteria, not to mention plants and animals, and as low as freezing at night -- there is ABUNDANT life forms, including higher life forms.

So the bottom line is that a UFO would most likely have to cross an immense distance in space, even though they would have no idea where to look, other than for habitable planets. Nothing out there is close enough to have received any transmission we have made.

Throwing another flag on this one as well. Again, this is supposition, and it is something that even the very "learned" folks with PHds aren't taking as gospel any more. There are, in fact, several theories in physics -- Not yet proven -- that can easily explain the travel of a space craft from one place in time-space, to another, without using vast amounts of energy, by bending time-space itself. For now, scientists don't know a way to DO it without vast quantities of energy, but they understand the theory of how to move from point A, to point B, by simply "warping" space. No, it's not science fiction or Star Trek, it IS a theory, but it's certainly not "traveling vast distances through space over long periods of time. ALL of that said, I'm not going to "hold my breath either"... but, let's all consider that this is just a speck of dust in a vast, vast Galaxy in an even vaster universe. There's life out there. Intelligent and otherwise. No DOUBT in my mind it got here riding on asteroids at this point. (look up the phrase panspermia) And I would posit that life exists not just here, but EVERYWHERE. Even places we're sure it doesn't.
131 posted on 11/13/2007 10:58:51 AM PST by Rick.Donaldson (http://www.transasianaxis.com - Visit for lastest on DPRK/Russia/China/Etc --Fred Thompson for Prez.)
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To: Rick.Donaldson

Statistically...to shape this in the right form...out of billions and billions of stars/planets out there....we already know of one planet that can support life. Statistically, then it becomes an awful hard argument to stand up...saying that one is the final number and cannot exceed one...out of those billions.

I think the public is simply lying to themselves...in believing that no other “living” planet or species will be found. The inability to cope with this huge potential change is what drives us to “hope” that nothing ever changes our sole perception of life.


138 posted on 11/13/2007 11:34:55 AM PST by pepsionice
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To: Rick.Donaldson
Nothing out there is close enough to have received any transmission we have made.

I missed a point I need to expound upon.

In 1860, James Maxwell predicted the existence of radio waves. In 1866, a fella named Loomis, an American dentist was able to actually demonstrate a type of wireless telegraphy.

By 1895 Marconi was able to send the very first wireless signals across the Atlantic. There were broadcasts before that, and ever since.

If we ignore all that and assume that the "modern use of radio systems" dates only to the 1930s when huge radio stations broadcast morse code and began to send out Amplitude modulation (What we in radio call "intelligence") then radio signals have been traveling since 1930 outward in all directions from this planet.

That's 77 years.

That means that INTELLIGABLE radio signals in the radio bands, and later television (and later in higher and higher frequencies) have been moving outward from our planet, in all directions now. That covers a huge chunk of space, 77 light YEARS to be precise.

Within 100 light years of Earth, there are approximately 14,600 stars. I can't (and won't) even begin to try to estimate how many planets are out there, but I will say that given the fact we've discovered to date MORE than 150 extrasolar planets. (Those are around stars other than OURS.)

Most of those are within the 100 light year radius I chose (it was easier than working out the numberof stars within 77 light years, yuk I hate math sometimes).

So, assuming there are... 10 planets out there with intelligent life within 100 light years of Earth, then to say "Nothing out there is close enough to have received any transmissions we have made" is a completely inaccurate statement. Actually, there are around 12-14 thousand stars that are WELL WITHIN the radio-radius of Earth's broadcasting systems........
145 posted on 11/13/2007 12:16:19 PM PST by Rick.Donaldson (http://www.transasianaxis.com - Visit for lastest on DPRK/Russia/China/Etc --Fred Thompson for Prez.)
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