Is there life beyond the Earth?

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Intelligent lifeforms might be pretty rare though. I only hope that when we finally get to meet them, that we don't shoot first ask questions later.

Or eat it / get eaten by it!

Was having this discussion on another forum, and it was suggested what if we find life on another planet and it was delicious?

Or what if life on another planet finds us and we taste like chicken?

Maybe we should not find other life after all.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Yes they might have a highly intelligent and technically advanced race of cephalopod

(you had to see the program )

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

"there's life Jim but not as we know it"
thank $%$@ there's no Yanks

[Muddy Diver]

Just to add my rather less intellectual pennies worth. Three movies spring to mind here which started my own thoughts reeling when I first saw them. The first, "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" had a piece which stated that one planet attacked another by sending its largest fleet ever assembled to take over the victim planet. This whole fleet was swallowed by a dog! Lesson Scale! So how do we know that some airborne viruses are not from outer space??????? They appear from nowhere don't they Bird Flu for example.

The second is similar to the first. The end of Men in Black where we are life on earth rotating about a star in our galaxy along with countless others within our universe which is suspended in the marble of some interstellar beast. This could go on...and on.. and on etc etc This kind of marries with my own thought process.

The third, "Matrix", where the human race is described as a virus consuming every raw resource on our planet. This kind of marries with Mick Pinners opinions and although I'm not an environmentalist, I really dont think that we appreciate what we have in Earth!

Sorry to sound like a movie buff. I'm not, I just remember a few salient bits. Is there life elsewhere? You bet! Intelligent? You bet! The most intelligent life forms though have probably learned to live within the scale of available or renewable resources which their environments can produce and have stopped fighting each other over small pieces of land which jut out from oceans or differing religeous beliefs. I also remember a book by Asimov (no not our own Asi) entitled "Was god an astronaut" compelling reading offering some very good explanation for the remarkable pre historic land markings which looked like airports in S. America and many other inexplicable wonders (many of a religeous nature).

I believe that intelligence is relative and that we have a long way to go. FWIW

[vespine]

I have not read that book by Asimov but I've read a bit of work by Erich Von Daniken which sounds along the same lines. Most famous of his works is probably "Chariots of the Gods" where he examines a lot of prehistoric evidence and draws not-so-loose conclusions from them, it's quite compelling, I believe there has been at least one documentary made from his work too, worth hunting down if you are interested in that kind of stuff...

As for the 'is there life' question, I don't believe you can deny it. Even if life is extremely "unlikely" requiring absolutely perfect conditions to 'happen' and exist, to think we are our Earth is the sole winners of some universal life lottery jackpot is crazy considering how many billions of stars we have just within out 'observable' surroundings. Wether we will ever be witness to other life is another question, the distances and times between them may just be insurmountable, but I can not believe that there is NO life anywhere else in the entire universe.

[ving (David)]

Originally Posted by GrampianStars

"there's life Jim but not as we know it"

copy cat!

[mattweather]

There should be another life somewhere, maybe in Alpha stars solar system? They are our closet stars to us and they are twins too. How about barnard's star?

Matt

[slice of heaven]

Originally Posted by vespine

[SIZE=2]I have not read that book by Asimov but I've read a bit of work by Erich Von Daniken which sounds along the same lines. Most famous of his works is probably "Chariots of the Gods" where he examines a lot of prehistoric evidence and draws not-so-loose conclusions from them, it's quite compelling, I believe there has been at least one documentary made from his work too, worth hunting down if you are interested in that kind of stuff...

On the same track is a series of books by Zechariah Sitchin..The Earth Chronicles... I've read condensed versions of the first 5. Interesting read without a doubt, his conclusions...well, their his , but interesting none the less.
I liked the parts on the knowledge of astronomy of the Sumerians and their view of our solar system , some of which current scientists have only confirmed in recent times.

Is their other life out there? Without a doubt...we just have to find it.

[lone77star (Carl)]

For anyone to claim that there wasn't life beyond Earth, they would be utilizing a logical fallacy (an argument to ignorance). A lack of evidence never disproves anything. It only begs for evidence to prove the existence.

There are plenty of stars in the galaxy and plenty of galaxies in the universe (something like 10-50 billion stars in the average galaxy, and billions of galaxies), but not all stars are alike.

Many stars are far too young. Any planets there would still be suffering from the heavy meteor showers of formation. The system needs to be something like 2-3 billion years old. But also the system needs to be chemically rich. The very oldest systems are only hydrogen and helium with the barest whisper of other elements, possibly picked up from the interstellar medium.

The link below is for a short article on ancient, rich stars, ripe for habitable planets. It includes a list of nearby stars that fit this "garden spot" category.

Ancient Rich Star Systems