Are We Alone In the Universe? New Analysis Says Maybe

[-Cp]

Scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) work under the assumption that there is, in fact, intelligent life out there to be found. A new analysis may crush their optimism.


To calculate the likelihood that they'll make radio contact with extraterrestrials, SETI scientists use what's known as the Drake Equation. Formulated in the 1960s by Frank Drake of the SETI Institute in California, it approximates the number of radio-transmitting civilizations in our galaxy at any one time by multiplying a string of factors: the number of stars, the fraction that have planets, the fraction of those that are habitable, the probability of life arising on such planets, its likelihood of becoming intelligent and so on. [10 Alien Encounters Debunked]


The values of almost all these factors are highly speculative. Nonetheless, Drake and others have plugged in their best guesses, and estimate that there are about 10,000 tech-savvy civilizations in the galaxy currently sending signals our way — a number that has led some scientists to predict that we'lldetect alien signals within two decades.

Read the rest at:

http://www.space.com/12421-alien-life-rare-universe-extraterrestrials-seti.html

[PostmodernProphet]

Drake's Equation is faulty......the maximum number of planets that might support life rotating any particular star would be two, and then only if they were in totally synchronous bipolar orbit......in reality the likely number of such planets would be one or zero......

any mathematician can tell you the true result of any formula in which you multiply something by zero.......

by application of Drake's Equation, Earth does not exist........

[Gunny]

Drake's Equation is faulty......the maximum number of planets that might support life rotating any particular star would be two, and then only if they were in totally synchronous bipolar orbit......in reality the likely number of such planets would be one or zero......

any mathematician can tell you the true result of any formula in which you multiply something by zero.......

by application of Drake's Equation, Earth does not exist........

The actual fault is the junk science premise that in order for life to exist, it requires a situation the same as Earth, and the presumption that life must be organic (why else would it need a similar world to Earth?) and or that any life is required to exist only within Man's ability to explain it. The biggest flaw in scientific theory is Man's supreme arrogance.

[Gaffer]

Is there life on other worlds? Probably. Is there human life on other worlds? Probably not. The big question is whether there is sentient life capable of building civilizations. And that's what we are really looking for.

[Gunny]

Is there life on other worlds? Probably. Is there human life on other worlds? Probably not. The big question is whether there is sentient life capable of building civilizations. And that's what we are really looking for.

I can go with the probably.

One can get pretty imaginative about what that life might be. I would say as important as your points are, the ability to communicate with us and we with them would also be a necessity.

[Gaffer]

I can go with the probably.

One can get pretty imaginative about what that life might be. I would say as important as your points are, the ability to communicate with us and we with them would also be a necessity.

Communication would be essential. But the distances of space make it extremely difficult to have any kind of contact, even if we just listen in on something. It could take hundreds or thousands of years for a simple sentence to reach either listener.

We are not going to be traveling to other star systems any time soon. They would have to come to us which I'm not comfortable with.

[kowalskil]

I can go with the probably.

One can get pretty imaginative about what that life might be. I would say as important as your points are, the ability to communicate with us and we with them would also be a necessity.

Yes, this would be very difficult, considering communication between people on this planet.

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)

[soupnazi630]

Drake's Equation is faulty......the maximum number of planets that might support life rotating any particular star would be two, and then only if they were in totally synchronous bipolar orbit......in reality the likely number of such planets would be one or zero......

any mathematician can tell you the true result of any formula in which you multiply something by zero.......

by application of Drake's Equation, Earth does not exist........

The Drake equation may be faulty and of course it proves nothing. But it is not faulty in the manner in which you claim.

The number of planets which might support life in any given star system could quite plausibly be more than two. Even within our own solar system there is more than two. A planet does not have to be orbiting it's host star at all in order to fall within the window of being capable of supporting life an example in our star system is Europa a moon of Jupiter. So far as we can tell so far it seems to have the conditions needed to support some form of life even if not intelligent. With the large number of moons and satellites orbiting gas giants the number of planets capable of supporting life increases dramatically.Jupiter itself is also a candidate for some form of life. In addition other planets could have supported life at one time had conditions on those planets been slightly different. Mars for example.

The Drake equation took all of this into account.

[PostmodernProphet]

The Drake equation may be faulty and of course it proves nothing. But it is not faulty in the manner in which you claim.

The number of planets which might support life in any given star system could quite plausibly be more than two. Even within our own solar system there is more than two. A planet does not have to be orbiting it's host star at all in order to fall within the window of being capable of supporting life an example in our star system is Europa a moon of Jupiter. So far as we can tell so far it seems to have the conditions needed to support some form of life even if not intelligent. With the large number of moons and satellites orbiting gas giants the number of planets capable of supporting life increases dramatically.Jupiter itself is also a candidate for some form of life. In addition other planets could have supported life at one time had conditions on those planets been slightly different. Mars for example.

The Drake equation took all of this into account.

????.....uh, no......the fact that conditions on those planets ARE slightly different means they can't support life......no two planets in any solar system can be in that position where conditions aren't "slightly different" unless they chance to be in a completely synchronous bi-polar orbit......an unlikely rarity......

beyond that rarity, in any given solar system it may happen that ONE planet is in that unique position that life can be supported......or it may happen that none are.....

[soupnazi630]

????.....uh, no......the fact that conditions on those planets ARE slightly different means they can't support life......no two planets in any solar system can be in that position where conditions aren't "slightly different" unless they chance to be in a completely synchronous bi-polar orbit......an unlikely rarity......

beyond that rarity, in any given solar system it may happen that ONE planet is in that unique position that life can be supported......or it may happen that none are.....

.................uh no .........................

Slightly different conditions does not mean a planet is incapable of supporting life.

Once again you ignore fact that Jupiter and Europa are prime candidates for life despite vastly different conditions than here on Earth. We know that conditions on those two worlds can probably allow some form of life to exist we just cannot get close enough to prove or disprove whether such life exists there yet.

If one considers the vast difference in the circumference in the orbits of Earth and Jupiter one realizes that a very large window exists around every star where one or more planets capable of supporting life can orbit. It is not merely a set distance from the host star which makes life possible. One also has to consider the size and relative temperature of said star combined with the size and mass of the planet in questions and it's chemistry. This therefore means many such planets can orbit the same star. The capability to support life dependent only on the chemistry of each of those planets.

In addition it is only some of the internal characteristics of Mars which makes it incapable of supporting life such as the lack of a magnetic field and an improperly balanced atmosphere. Those conditions are not exclusively rooted in the distance of Mars from the sun which means in other star systems a planet at such a distance from it's host star can support life if said conditions on and within that planet differ slightly. We already have confirmed from viewing other planets in other star systems that the the size of a planet is not conditional on it's distance from it's host star and therefore conditions can vary widely.

Any star in the 400 billion or so making up the milky way can feasibly and logically be the center of a system which includes multiple planets and planetary satellites capable of supporting life making the total possible number of such planets hundreds of billions.

[LuvRPgrl]

Maybe life is out there, and we simply missed it.

Consider two factors: size and time.

SIZE

Is there a chance that the "life out there" is so small (compared to our own) among the vastness of the universe, that we are unlikely to see it even if we are looking right at it?

Brings to mind a cartoon (always a good reference ) on the subject that I once saw. Some guy is sitting at a table. On the floor beside him is a tiny space capsule the size of a pea, with a tiny door open on it. He's looking through a microscope, and a bunch of cells in the viewfinder are lining up to spell out the words, "Take us to your leader".

TIME

Some people say the Earth is maybe 4.5 billion years old, and the rest of the universe is much older. How long has Man existed on the planet? For that matter, how long has ANY "life as we know it" existed here, from single cells thru trilobites thru T-rexes thru man? Just a tiny fraction of the life of the planet. And if we start tossing nukes around or some other thing, that could all be gone in a thousand years or less.

"Life as we know it" has only existed HERE for a blink of an eye, in the history of the universe. Who's to say some other life form didn't develop or get created (insert your own favorite theory of origin here), half a universe-lifespan ago, grow, invent machines, spread through a galaxy or two, then goof and wipe themselves out like we might, all in their own relative blink of an eye, say ten billion years ago? Would there be ANY evidence of that left now? Even if there were, what are the chances of our finding it? We've been listening (and broadcasting) for less than a hundred years. And we've sent out what, a grand total of three spacecraft to exit our own SOLAR SYSTEM, and only in the last 20-30 years?

We have ZERO evidence that we are the only ones who are here, or have ever been. Course, there's zero evidence that we aren't, too. There's a very good chance that, if there was ever "life" in the universe, we (inevitably) missed it, and it's long gone now. If it ever existed.

What chances are there that, many billions of years in the future, other beings someplace will be saying the same thing... never knowing they are referring to US?

Good post.
Regarding size, I'm not sure if that can happen though, science has gotten bits of material down to smaller than an electron or proton or nucleus of an atom. I forget what they are called, but they can distinguish these things that are clinging together making up the nucleus. Im just not sure if anything can get much smaller, but then again, no matter how small of a particle you discover, there is always the question, what is that made of...

But in terms of missing others, not only possible, but more likely than not. That is, if you are running on the notion there is no creator. If there is a creator, either possiblity is just as likely, since its his choice.
It seems space travel to another solar system just isnt possible within our current realm. Wormholes, or something has to be discovered.

But I have also been contemplating the notion about something else being alive, could be right in front of us, and still we cant see them. Kinda like we cant see glass. Maybe they are comosed of something we just cant discern.
Not to mention, our body is composed of 99.999999999999999999999999999999999% space. It entirely possible that the old scientific addage that two things cant occupy the same space at the same time, might not be true. Suppose some other particles are capable of filliing in between the atoms whirling around, and they can be a part of a larger organism.
Its possible they could pass right through us, and we dont even know it, the molecules or atoms, or protons could be composed of a substance that makes it impossible for their atomic parts to collide with ours, kinda the opposite of gravity.
In fact, there might not be any gravity at all. Maybe everything is held together by some universal force that pushes things together.

Oh, and there is NOTHING that is Vanilla and delicous in the same sentence, CHOCOLATE BABY, CHOCOLATE !!

[Gaffer]

Good post.
Regarding size, I'm not sure if that can happen though, science has gotten bits of material down to smaller than an electron or proton or nucleus of an atom. I forget what they are called, but they can distinguish these things that are clinging together making up the nucleus. Im just not sure if anything can get much smaller, but then again, no matter how small of a particle you discover, there is always the question, what is that made of...

But in terms of missing others, not only possible, but more likely than not. That is, if you are running on the notion there is no creator. If there is a creator, either possiblity is just as likely, since its his choice.
It seems space travel to another solar system just isnt possible within our current realm. Wormholes, or something has to be discovered.

But I have also been contemplating the notion about something else being alive, could be right in front of us, and still we cant see them. Kinda like we cant see glass. Maybe they are comosed of something we just cant discern.
Not to mention, our body is composed of 99.999999999999999999999999999999999% space. It entirely possible that the old scientific addage that two things cant occupy the same space at the same time, might not be true. Suppose some other particles are capable of filliing in between the atoms whirling around, and they can be a part of a larger organism.
Its possible they could pass right through us, and we dont even know it, the molecules or atoms, or protons could be composed of a substance that makes it impossible for their atomic parts to collide with ours, kinda the opposite of gravity.
In fact, there might not be any gravity at all. Maybe everything is held together by some universal force that pushes things together.

Oh, and there is NOTHING that is Vanilla and delicous in the same sentence, CHOCOLATE BABY, CHOCOLATE !!

I think some of what your talking about is discussed in the theory of dark matter, which they haven't been able to prove yet. The speculations are endless. And everything we know is limited to human experience and understanding. That's why scifi is so cool. The thing about reality is that it's always different than we imagine it.

Cool posts from both of you.

[Missileman]

Scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) work under the assumption that there is, in fact, intelligent life out there to be found. A new analysis may crush their optimism.


To calculate the likelihood that they'll make radio contact with extraterrestrials, SETI scientists use what's known as the Drake Equation. Formulated in the 1960s by Frank Drake of the SETI Institute in California, it approximates the number of radio-transmitting civilizations in our galaxy at any one time by multiplying a string of factors: the number of stars, the fraction that have planets, the fraction of those that are habitable, the probability of life arising on such planets, its likelihood of becoming intelligent and so on. [10 Alien Encounters Debunked]


The values of almost all these factors are highly speculative. Nonetheless, Drake and others have plugged in their best guesses, and estimate that there are about 10,000 tech-savvy civilizations in the galaxy currently sending signals our way — a number that has led some scientists to predict that we'lldetect alien signals within two decades.

Read the rest at:

http://www.space.com/12421-alien-life-rare-universe-extraterrestrials-seti.html

I'm curious how you managed to formulate your thread title after reading that article. I'm even more curious why you felt compelled to so grossly mischaracterize the content of the article with your choice of words in the thread title.

[Mr. P]

I'm curious how you managed to formulate your thread title after reading that article. I'm even more curious why you felt compelled to so grossly mischaracterize the content of the article with your choice of words in the thread title.

LOL... tis CPs MO ya know.

[darin]

I'm curious how you managed to formulate your thread title after reading that article. I'm even more curious why you felt compelled to so grossly mischaracterize the content of the article with your choice of words in the thread title.

Did you miss the BIG TEXT at the top of the article which reads:

"Are We Alone In the Universe? New Analysis Says Maybe"

(shrug).

Anything that points to the 'special-ness' of our Plant and the intricate and perfect DESIGN, really hurts folk who place their hopes on magic and random chance being the source of all life.

To think our biological systems just sorta happened, is honestly just as stupid to think coffee beans, milk, vanilla beans and water, if left in their containers will magically 'given millions of years' somehow form into a delicious vanilla non-fat latte.