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Old 01-11-2009, 10:46 PM
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AlexN
Widefield wuss

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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Caboolture, Australia
Posts: 6,994
I'd say it would be fairly small minded of us to think that in the entire universe, we are on the only planet with sentient life forms...

We know of 300+ planets outside of our own solar system, orbiting other stars within this galaxy... There is likely to be many many more than what we've found, remember, we can't see what is on the opposite side of our galaxy due to the galactic core being as dense as it is.. There may well be other sentient life within our own galaxy.. and the likely chance is that we (in our lifetimes) will never know one way or the other.. Now zoom out a ways, and look at the bigger picture.. There is 300+ planets we know of in this single galaxy... There are hundreds of millions of galaxies out there, if you were to assume similar distribution of planets in every galaxy, then the number of planets out there would be astronomical. Now, clearly, the percentage of these that would be suitable for us to live on (Carbon based life) may be low... However whats to say an extraterrestrial is carbon based? There is nothing to rule out life that breathes sulfur instead of oxygen, or life that does not require water..

Chances are better for there being other life in the universe than not...

If there isn't.. If we're it, isn't it a hell of a waste of space? Like building an entire city as a house for 2 people...
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