Extra-terrestrials (Aliens) - A Poll

[Neil]

Thankyou :r ofl:

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Well, plans are underway to:

1) find rocky terrestial style planets around exo stars. Then determine their mass and distance from their parent star.

2) ascertain their atmospheric makeup (by analysing their light)

Over the next 20 years or so, there'll be enough technology to determine 1) and 2) imho. From there, it'll be simple enough to work out "pollution" in alien atmospheres, and work out from there as to if there's life or not. I think we're going to find that life is not uncommon, and intelligent life forms by natural means of evolution (given enough time of course).

It is completely illogical to think that we're the only sentient life. Sorry, but you'd have to be mad to think that. We've found 300 odd exo planets in the past Ten years, and the number is growing exponentially as new technologies become available. We've only analysed a very very very very very small portion of our own parent galaxy, imagine if we had the ability to check our ENTIRE galaxy - there'd be millions of planets imho. And that's just our galaxy. When there's trillions of other galaxies in the known universe, the odds are simply just too great for their not to be life imho.

Dave

[AlexN]

Dave, another problem is that most of the time when they look at other planets, and their atmospheric make up, they deem a planet to be uninhabitable due to either its temperature, proximity to the star (radiation problems etc) and the composition of the atmosphere.. As I mentioned before, There is nothing ruling out aliens that live in 180°c temperatures and breathe sulphur dioxide... Absolutely no reason they can't handle constant exposure to massive amounts of UV or even gamma radiation... There is no rule saying they have to be human, or even human like... So whilst any given planet orbiting another star may be utterly uninhabitable for us, does not mean that life is not there.. it just wont be life as we know it.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

I realise that Alex, but I think most investigations will try and concentrate on planets with similar temperature zones to Earth, as well as similar atmospheric conditions. Life is very resilient, and I have no doubt in my mind that it can exist in far harsher conditions than what is on Earth. Intelligent life too for that matter.

Dave

[MrB (Simon)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

That can't be proven,

Ofcourse, but it was just my opinion.

and, the first time someone born on Mars or anywhere else in the solar system comes to Earth for a holiday and/or business, an extraterrestrial will have set foot on our planet...technically.

Good Point!

[michaellxv (Michael)]

you are looking for the Drake equation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Every now and then someone has a go at updating our best guesses at each parameter. Problem is that it is not too hard to manipulate it to get the answer you want.

The real problem is that based on our current understanding of the laws of physics we could not have a meaningful conversation even if we did find ET let alone go visit each other.

Michael.

[Astro78]

Originally Posted by michaellxv

The real problem is that based on our current understanding of the laws of physics we could not have a meaningful conversation even if we did find ET let alone go visit each other.

Michael.

Dunno (not disagreeing), but reckon if we could travel back to just about anytime in the past, say right back to the Sumerians or further, we'd have a pretty interesting time sharing 'life experiences' with each other. Conversations, literally, might be hard and of course sharing the same genome might help of course.

Perhaps if we could observe them in real time and were taught about them in depth at school, we might not bother or want to....

[troypiggo (Troy)]

If it's ever proven that life on other planets doesn't exist, all these movies I've been watching - they're all lie? Oh no. And to think I put "Jedi" down for "religion" in that Census...

[UK1 (Rob)]

I have seen some, they have formed a comunity called the Circque de Soleil,
they are all freeks, with the things they do, to them the earth has no gravity, so they must be aleins from another planet

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Originally Posted by MrB

Is there other life out there somewhere? I believe so.
Has an extraterrestrial being ever visited this planet? No, not even close, and probably never will.

Agree on both points

[Esseth (Alan)]

Is out there, pretty good chance.... will be detected in my life time, chances are slim. but they are there.

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

My wife reckons that because I can bend my first joint of my fingers without bending the other joints that means that I am an alien.

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Life I suspect will be hard not to find once we can really look for it...

Intelligent?...depends on your definition (including on earth)...

Do lgm (little green men) visit earth?...I think (my opinion) it is unlikely...

[AdrianF (Adrian)]

There probably is someone out there on a forum much like this one wondering if there is a planet out there with any kind of intelligent life form.

Adrian

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I believe there is intelligent life out beyond our Solar System.
I would love to see what would happen if they ever came to visit our planet, but the chances of that are so slim.
Lucky there's others out there who feel the same otherwise we wouldn't have all these wonderful Sci Fi movies and shows to watch.

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

I went with "not likely".

As opposed to Carl Sagan (Copernican principle), I guess that I'm a proponent of the Rare Earth Hypothesis as put forward by Peter Ward (not ours).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

http://www.damninteresting.com/life-without-the-moon

There are soooooo many "freaky" conditions that were super-luckily in place for us to be here at all.

Maybe, just maybe there are others, but I'd hazard a "no" answer before a "yes".

[FredSnerd (Claude)]

That was an interesting Wikipedia article Chris. I suppose time will tell whether the Copernical people or the Rare Earthers are right

[Ian Robinson]

Originally Posted by AdrianF

There probably is someone out there on a forum much like this one wondering if there is a planet out there with any kind of intelligent life form.

Adrian

Ha .... then they shouldn't waste their time looking in Sol's direction as there is bugger all intelligent life on the 3rd rock out.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Ian Robinson

Ha .... then they shouldn't waste their time looking in Sol's direction as there is bugger all intelligent life on the 3rd rock out.

Oh, it's intelligent. But it's also arrogant, greedy, apathetic, selfish, ignorant, misguided, hoodwinked, short sighted and a great number of other things.

Above all, it's immature (or acting that way, at least).

[Darth Wader (Wade)]

Originally Posted by AlexN

Dave, another problem is that most of the time when they look at other planets, and their atmospheric make up, they deem a planet to be uninhabitable due to either its temperature, proximity to the star (radiation problems etc) and the composition of the atmosphere.. As I mentioned before, There is nothing ruling out aliens that live in 180°c temperatures and breathe sulphur dioxide... Absolutely no reason they can't handle constant exposure to massive amounts of UV or even gamma radiation... There is no rule saying they have to be human, or even human like... So whilst any given planet orbiting another star may be utterly uninhabitable for us, does not mean that life is not there.. it just wont be life as we know it.

An excellent point... we humans really should shed ourselves of our anthropocentric view of the universe. There is a great article in the latest Australian Sky & Telescope about life in what we perceive to be "extreme" conditions - excellent reading.