Do you believe there is life on another planet?

[Soubriquet]

I think it would be incredibly naive of us to assume that in all the planets in all the universe, we are the only one with advanced life forms.

I like to believe there is another planet out there with humans on it but it may only be primitive life.

You?

I find it mind boggling that there are more stars than grains of sand, I live by the beach, a very sandy beach at that, I think there’s a very good possibility there are lots of other life forms out there. Hope they have made a better job looking after their planet.

I like to think that there are hundreds and thousands of worlds out there. Some like cavemen, some like us, some far more advanced. Some without human life and just animals

And I also think that "aliens" would just be humans who have evolved differently to us depending on their worlds environment

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg

Was this a more advanced civilisation showing themselves or a weather phenomenon?

You say planet but even in our own solar system some moons could support life ...

Be careful what you wish for.......

www.imdb.com/title/tt0734684/

It would be very naive to suppose we are the only sentient life in the Universe.

@DGRossetti

You say planet but even in our own solar system some moons could support life ...

Other than Enceladus and/or Europa, theres arent any other known moons that would have life form possibilities due to the extreme distance away from the Sun.

This is why Titan, even with its thick atmosphere, is not a likely candidate due to its extremely cold temperatures.

Even Europa seems iffy due to the inherent proximity to Jupiter and is massive exposure to its radiation. (But no question that Europa holds a LOT of sub-surface water, greater than found here on Earth).

I can’t imagine there’s nothing out there. I’m betting there are advanced life firms who look at us and equate us to gorillas running around a forest - and that’s without knowing about the thing called Trump.

I think it's pretty much definite that life exists all over the universe. Richard Dawkins made the point in one of his books that there are an estimated billion billion planets. Therefore if the probability of life on other planets was a billion to one, there would be life on a billion planets! Mind boggling stuff.

Other than Enceladus and/or Europa, theres arent any other known moons that would have life form possibilities due to the extreme distance away from the Sun.

Warmth can come from internal radioactive decay plus the effect of gravity.

Even on earth there are plenty of things that don't need light to live.

Have a look at the Drake Equation.

Aliens? You mean foreigners - out to take our jobs and our atmosphere and our earth. Why can't they stay where they are? Probably be talking some weird language and eating smelly food and having all these funny ideas above their station.

I genuinely can’t see why there wouldn’t be other life out there. We’re here, aren’t we?

It’s so wonderful to think of the universe and everything in it, everything we know and everything we don’t know.

The ultimate goal of NASA's exoplanet program is to find unmistakable signs of current life on a planet beyond Earth. How soon that can happen depends on two unknowns: the prevalence of life in the galaxy and how lucky we get as we take those first, tentative, exploratory steps. My own view is that if technologically advanced civilisations did exist elsewhere, we would have found evidence of them by now. We have been looking seriously for decades and have found nothing
vikingclothing.net/

My own view is that if technologically advanced civilisations did exist elsewhere, we would have found evidence of them by now. We have been looking seriously for decades and have found nothing

So we've only looked about 0.00000000000000000000000001% into the universe, but you have decided that's enough to draw a conclusion from ?

Forget "technologically advanced" - especially since we are talking about making that judgement from a species that invented the C5 and the Austin Allegro.

Let's start with basics - if we can find elemental oxygen in the atmosphere of planetary body, it's a damn good indicator of some sort of life at work.

@DGRossetti

Other than Enceladus and/or Europa, theres arent any other known moons that would have life form possibilities due to the extreme distance away from the Sun.

Warmth can come from internal radioactive decay plus the effect of gravity.

Even on earth there are plenty of things that don't need light to live.

The reference to distance was meant to signify warmth, sorry about that :)

None of the known moons in the solar system are overtly radioactive (in the classical sense), ergo, nothing to decay.

Tidal warming does exist as we've discovered with Enceladus and even the geysers on Triton, but its difficult to imagine even microbial life on these moons given the limitations of where they actually are.

Haven't they found hints of liquid water on Pluto ?

www.scientificamerican.com/article/surprise-pluto-may-have-possessed-a-subsurface-ocean-at-birth

It would be a brave person who would bet against there being life outside earth.

I sometimes think “what if we’re in a parallel universe?” and then I do something silly just for my own amusement 😬

@doodlejump1980

I sometimes think “what if we’re in a parallel universe?” and then I do something silly just for my own amusement 😬

Well that's a different question altogether

Boltzmann brains and simulation theories also abound. And are taken seriously by real scientists too. Certainly the ever-cheerful Prof Brian Cox is more than happy to discuss such things as being possible.

I like to believe there is another planet out there with humans on it but it may only be primitive life.

I absolutely believe that there is life on other planets but there's no reason for them to be "humans" at all. I don't think it will be like Star Trek etc where, for the most part, aliens are humanoid.

@SoupDragon

I like to believe there is another planet out there with humans on it but it may only be primitive life.

I absolutely believe that there is life on other planets but there's no reason for them to be "humans" at all. I don't think it will be like Star Trek etc where, for the most part, aliens are humanoid.

I think it's a very good question as to whether we would recognise "life" outside of earth anyway. After all we (as a species) don't really have a stellar track record of finding it when it's on our own planet under our noses.

And I say "life" as - like "intelligence" - it's really one of those circular definitions that evades a simple definition.

Which means - galling as it may be - anyone who wants to claim aliens "are among us" could have a chance of being right. Admittedly by accident rather than careful study.

Yes. When you consider how some life forms have adapted to live in the (to us) least hospitable places on Earth, there is no reason to think that life forms would evolve to live on planets we would consider completely inhospitable.

The number 2 appears in a number of projections.

2,000,000,000,000 detectable galaxies.

2,000,000,000 average stars per galaxy.

2 planets in the habitable range of each solar system.

Perhaps there are 2 or more universes.

If aliens landed tomorrow I would do a number 2.

I have no doubt there’s life out there somewhere, there are potentially trillions of planets, but the distances involved will mean that even if signs are detected there will be nothing we can really do about it.

Say we detect waves that suggest an intelligent life form from somewhere in our Milky Way. That could be anything upto 50,000 light years away, so any “reply” we send will take a rather long time to get to them. And that’s just in our own galaxy. A signal spotted from a more distant galaxy might take millions of years to respond to.

Until we get to the point of being able to get past the speed of light (and our current knowledge says that is impossible) we will remain alone I think.