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Buce

Aliens?

By Buce, in General Chat

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RoboFox

RoboFox

Posted
Posted

How TF did the Coronavirus thread turn into discussions about aliens? 

 

Agree with @z-layrex, given that we live in a galaxy with about 200 billion stars, 40 billion of which have Earth-sized planets around them, it’s not a far-fetched thought that there may be alien life out there. Of the 1,780 confirmed planets beyond our solar system, as many as 16 are located in their star's habitable zone, or "goldilocks" zone. 

 

As incredible as the technological advances have been in the last 30 years, it's a shame none of us are likely to live long enough to see humans even venture to the nearest planet, let alone outside of our solar system.

 

There's absolutely no way anything's visited earth, though. Abductions? Please.

 

The Wow! Signal is interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

 

This is a fun read for UFO conspiracy tosh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_1628_incident

 

 

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Dunge

Dunge

Posted
Posted

If we’re talking about any kind of life elsewhere in the universe, my understanding is that “life” has been generated in laboratories (although I don’t have the details on hand). So that seems highly likely.

 

Intelligent life becomes a more interesting question. I think of it this way: We, being from the Earth, look out at the rest of the solar system and beyond and find it fascinating. That Mars is red. That Jupiter is a world of great storms. Saturn’s rings. Supermassive Black holes. Quasars. Etc. But I would contend that, if an alien were to observe our solar system and be asked what the most interesting thing about it is, they would surely say it was the Earth.

 

It’s a planet that’s a bit smaller than it should theoretically be. It’s an ice world in the Goldilocks zone. And it has, relatively speaking, a single, gigantic moon. (Far bigger compared to its planet than any other planet in the solar system). Add to that a stable gas giant in the mid-reaches of the solar system, a stable, long-lived star and our position on a leg of a spiral in the galaxy, and maybe the conditions get more and more specific for the long process of intelligent life to form. And even then it took billions of years.

 

Whether these things are relevant or not, we don’t really have enough data to say (sample size of 1). But they are unusual and interesting, particularly the moon large enough to affect daily tides.
 

It may be that there is intelligent life across the universe, or indeed across the galaxy, and that we’re all hampered by the massive distances involved in travel and communication. That’s certainly a viable possibility. But I do think there’s also a possibility that what’s happened here is incredibly rare.

 

As for aliens visiting us, I am not a believer.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted

Interesting discussion.

 

As @Line-X aptly mentioned in the Covid thread, the Drake Equation is just a postulate.

 

However, given that we have found credible evidence that life once existed on Mars and also evidence that life might be existing on Venus right now, to say nothing of the extremophile organisms that inhabit some corners of the Earth, I think the only thing that separates us from discovering hard evidence of bacterial life on other planets is a matter of time. Not even sure how someone versed in the topic might be able to argue otherwise seeing as the more we find out even about our own Solar System, the more the needle points in that direction. And seeing as we find life in our Solar System, it would be naive to suggest that other planets in our galaxy and our universe wouldn't have it too. The makeup of our Solar System and the planetary makeup within it isn't all that unique btw, @Dunge - which shortens the odds further.

 

Sapient life, however, is another matter entirely. As people have already touched on, the sheer scale of the galaxy and greater universe means that intelligent life has only two ways of navigating its way to other habitable systems - either by breaking the laws of physics as we know them and engaging in faster-than-light travel or communication, or by extending their own lifespan to truly massive proportions (tens of thousands of years, minimum). Both of these options would require technology vastly ahead of what we have right now, and given that discrepancy it's likely we wouldn't want to meet such a civilisation face to face - in all likelihood we would be entirely at their mercy, if they had any. So yes, that particular question is much more speculative.

 

NB. @RoboFox I'm hopeful we will see humans on Mars by 2040 at the outside. Hopefully that is within the lifetimes of most FTers here.

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Paninistickers

Paninistickers

Posted
Posted

The timelines don't match up either. Earth is what, around 4 thousand million years old?. Humans have been around for only six million of all those thousands of millions of years. 

 

And been advanced for what, 3 or 4 thousand years and then o my capable of radio transmission for 120 odd years. 

 

So if other planets follow a similar timeline.....the chances of intelligent life overlapping at the same time is absolutely remote

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

The timelines don't match up either. Earth is what, around 4 thousand million years old?. Humans have been around for only six million of all those thousands of millions of years. 

 

And been advanced for what, 3 or 4 thousand years and then o my capable of radio transmission for 120 odd years. 

 

So if other planets follow a similar timeline.....the chances of intelligent life overlapping at the same time is absolutely remote

This is another factor, yes. Time is a dimension just like space and just how we're separated by space, we could well be separated by time, too.

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Dunge

Dunge

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Interesting discussion.

 

As @Line-X aptly mentioned in the Covid thread, the Drake Equation is just a postulate.

 

However, given that we have found credible evidence that life once existed on Mars and also evidence that life might be existing on Venus right now, to say nothing of the extremophile organisms that inhabit some corners of the Earth, I think the only thing that separates us from discovering hard evidence of bacterial life on other planets is a matter of time. Not even sure how someone versed in the topic might be able to argue otherwise seeing as the more we find out even about our own Solar System, the more the needle points in that direction. And seeing as we find life in our Solar System, it would be naive to suggest that other planets in our galaxy and our universe wouldn't have it too. The makeup of our Solar System and the planetary makeup within it isn't all that unique btw, @Dunge - which shortens the odds further.

 

Sapient life, however, is another matter entirely. As people have already touched on, the sheer scale of the galaxy and greater universe means that intelligent life has only two ways of navigating its way to other habitable systems - either by breaking the laws of physics as we know them and engaging in faster-than-light travel or communication, or by extending their own lifespan to truly massive proportions (tens of thousands of years, minimum). Both of these options would require technology vastly ahead of what we have right now, and given that discrepancy it's likely we wouldn't want to meet such a civilisation face to face - in all likelihood we would be entirely at their mercy, if they had any. So yes, that particular question is much more speculative.

 

NB. @RoboFox I'm hopeful we will see humans on Mars by 2040 at the outside. Hopefully that is within the lifetimes of most FTers here.


I remember seeing a while back about the variety of different solar systems out there, with things such as gas giants being toward the inner reaches, etc. But I fully accept that, although there will be many solar systems that can be chalked off when searching for ones similar to ours, it still leaves plenty that are viable.

 

It’s the big moon that fascinates me though. That stands out to me as being different and far rarer. I couldn’t say for certain that it is significant, but it just occurs to me that it provides a constant and gentle gravitational stirring of the pot that means it’s worth considering in all this.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
Just now, Dunge said:


I remember seeing a while back about the variety of different solar systems out there, with things such as gas giants being toward the inner reaches, etc. But I fully accept that, although there will be many solar systems that can be chalked off when searching for ones similar to ours, it still leaves plenty that are viable.

 

It’s the big moon that fascinates me though. That stands out to me as being different and far rarer. I couldn’t say for certain that it is significant, but it just occurs to me that it provides a constant and gentle gravitational stirring of the pot that means it’s worth considering in all this.

Pluto has Charon which is similar in terms of relative size...but yes, it's plausible that such planet/satellite combinations are rarer throughout the galaxy. If we find life on other plnets in our Solar System, however, that tends to render the idea of such a thing being more conducive to life much less important.

 

The reason we came up with more gas giant solar systems at the start of searching was because those were the only ones we could really see with any definition - the ones with smaller, terrestrial planets are much, much harder to discern (a good example of survivor bias). But we are starting to find more and more of them now.

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The Quick Brown Fox

The Quick Brown Fox

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Paninistickers said:

The timelines don't match up either. Earth is what, around 4 thousand million years old?. Humans have been around for only six million of all those thousands of millions of years. 

 

And been advanced for what, 3 or 4 thousand years and then o my capable of radio transmission for 120 odd years. 

 

So if other planets follow a similar timeline.....the chances of intelligent life overlapping at the same time is absolutely remote

With this in mind, we are a relatively young species. There is nothing to say that intelligent life somewhere else isn't 1000s of years more advanced than us. 

I believe there is life out there and I believe they have visited us. 

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whoareyaaa

whoareyaaa

Posted
Posted (edited)

who knows, there is no reason to suggest that another planets race wouldn't be able to get to our solar system, and if they do have the technology to get here there not just going to roll up outside your house they would be practically invisible 

 

I've been watching to much ancient aliens.

 

one thing I would say is say an alien did crash here do you think the gov would tell the public or would it cause panic and outrage, so lets say if it did happen and they kept it secret there not all of a sudden going to start telling us now.. 

 

you honestly don't know either way and you would be a fool to think otherwise

 

 

Edited by whoareyaaa
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MPH

MPH

Posted
Posted (edited)

It’s interesting that when people think of the possibility of Alien life form they think of walking creatures... who can fly space crafts. 
 

 

What if any Alien life form out there is water based? Or can fly not walk? Has wings instead of hands?

Edited by MPH
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z-layrex

z-layrex

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, MPH said:

It’s interesting that when people think of the possibility of Alien life form they think of walking creatures... who can fly space crafts. 
 

 

What if any Alien life form out there is water based? Or can fly not walk? Has wings instead of hands?

Yes.

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