Do you think there is life on another planet?

[Thingsarebecomingstrange]

If so what do you imagine it would be like?

Similar to us humans, just plants, sea creatures, something beyond our imagination and totally out of this world.

Something much more advanced than we are or far behind.

I've been watching 3 body problem and it gets you wondering.

We have quite a few amoeba in Parliament. Does that count?

Probably not very. They had size, teeth, strength etc. No need for advanced intelligence. Crocs and Komodo dragons aren't intelligent.

Now cephalopods, that would be interesting.

I think surely it's more unlikely that there isn't life elsewhere?

There must be life at least as advanced as us somewhere - I can't see how we would be the most advanced when we had a massive planetary extinction event long after life had first evolved.

Everyone else on planets that forms led at the same time, in the goldilocks zone have had a head start on us. (assuming that's what's needed - who's to say our goldilocks is the same as some other life form's after all.)

I've often thought alien life might be on a completely different scale - so tiny we could never see it even with an advanced microscope, or so huge we couldn't comprehend it - a speck of dust in their world is 1000000x the size of earth.

There is a theory, and i can't for the life of me remember what it's called, that puts advanced evolution into about 5 stages - the last stage being advanced enough to cross space and visit other planets.

Stage 2/3 are sort of 'Being able to harness your nearest sun and have limitless power/fuel' and stage 4 is 'mastered colonising nearby planets' ect ect

Needless to say we are barely into stage 1 at the mo.

Anyway - the point is that the theory says that the possibility of lifeforms getting past stage 2/3 without

a) destroying their planet (and therefore themselves) or
b) their sun dying first because this evolution takes so long

is pretty much zero.

It's fascinating - i hope someone here knows what i'm on about and link to it 😄

But to answer the OP - yes i think there's life on other planets.

I think it's the Great Filter I mentioned earlier.

Is it !

I'll google that because i fancy reading again.

Of course there are, has no one seen the BBC documentaries such as "The Clangers"?
One of them even posts on here, @soupdragon.

When you think about the insane size of the galaxy, and then realise there are millions more galaxies, with equally insane distances between them of almost totally empty space, I think it's fair to assume something vaguely equivalent to us has evolved at some point somewhere, but we will likely never know about each other because we could never cross those vast vast distances to ever meet.

Of course. I'd forgotten about them. And to boot we now have the answer of who to vote for in the next election too 👍

Almost certainly yes. When you look at how large the universe is with all the galaxies out there, the thought that there isn't any other life out there is hard to imagine. The probability that we are the only ones here is infinity to one because literally the universe does look infinite. Scientists are still having their mind blown about how large it is.

For me, I find the question about time and the possibility of time all at once more intriguing. It really does make the whole matrix theory more real when you consider it from that perspective. If everything is happening at once are we just choosing to experience this life form for this period and then it will be 'over', except it's already happened and available to happen over and over again? Any time we choose, we can subject ourselves to gravitational forces and go through all the experiences of being human should we wish.

As an early 80s teenager, I thought we'd be travelling in space by now. I may have watched too much, Blakes 7, Buck Rogers, and BattleStar Galactica..😅 I've always believed in life on other planets..somewhere.

Life somewhere in the universe? I'm quite certain of it. Intelligent life on a par with us? Maybe. Intelligent life on a par with us that is also willing and able to communicate with us? Unlikely, very unlikely

I believe there has to be life somewhere else, the question is is when did life exist? The universe has been around for billions of years so life probably existed before us and after us.

Ah - found it * *@MrsTerryPratchett - The Kardashev scale is what i'd read before.

But the Great Filter amounts to same thing i think.

It's certainly a possibility, and plausible that some other form of life has evolved somewhere else in the universe, but there is no guarantee it would be sentient, or that we'll ever encounter it, because to travel the distances involved someone is going to have to invent faster than light, or interdimensional travel that will probably involve mucking about with Black Holes.

It's also entirely possible that Earth is home to the only life anywhere in the universe, or that it is the first planet to actually propagate life, or that it is the very last of multitudes of planets that were once teeming. The last seems the least likely to me, but who knows. We might get a shock relatively soon and find something lurking about under the ice on Europa, within mere spitting distance of our own home. That would be amazing, not just because it's on our doorstep, but because of what finding life on two heavenly bodies so relatively close together suggests about the remainder of the universe, especially the bits that are older than our part.

Considering the size of the universe, and the near infinite number of stars and planets, I think it's highly likely there is, was or will be intelligent life out there somewhere. However, given the sheer distances involved I think it's nigh on impossible that we will ever come into contact with any of them.

Think of it this way. The nearest known planet to earth that is believed capable of supporting life is 14 light-years away. That is a massive distance. Based on our current technology it would take roughly 45,000 years for us to send a spacecraft there. Even then, just because the planet appears capable of supporting life it does not mean that it currently is, or that it is intelligent life. It could have been home to an advanced civilisation that has long since died out or life could still be eons away from evolving intelligence.

If you're interested, google the Drake equation. It's one of no doubt several methods that scientists have come up with for trying to estimate how many intelligent civilisations there might currently be in our galaxy. The range is between just a few and a couple of hundred with the most probable answer being between thirty and forty. Sounds promising eh? Except the Milky Way is almost 100,000 light-years in diameter. The chance of actually locating and communicating with any of those possible civilisations is effectively nil.

I think it is a bit ignorant of us to assume we are the only occupied planet in the galaxy. Who knows what's really out there?

I think there almost certainly is, or at least there has been, or will be at some point in the future. But the chance of making some form of contact is effectively zero.

The scale of the universe is so vast it is pretty much incomprehensible. What blows my mind is that when we look at distant stars we are literally looking into the past due to the speed light travels and the distances involved. So perhaps if intelligent life somewhere out there is looking back at planet Earth, they're looking at the dinosaurs.

13.7 billion years?? Your maths is very dodgy.

Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky has some - very like intelligent birds. It’s a good read.

I do wish I had something vaguely intelligent to add to this but I am finding these replies very interesting and I'm going to get googling.

I sometimes wonder if there is a species out there who are more than capable of contacting or visiting us but they’ve taken a look and decided not to bother. Wouldn’t blame them tbh.

Given how many planets are out there I think it would be odd if there wasn't some sort of life elsewhere.