To believe that each star, a distant sun, may have life?

[Mydoglicksplates]

Camping in the back garden, looking at the stars, trying to teach the kids the constellations.
Each star, a distant sun, how can there not be life out there?
Also does anyone feel comfort from the stars, the same stars that prehistoric prayed before, that millions of people have sent their prayers too?

I agree. It would be arrogant beyond belief to think we're the only life in the whole universe.

I love looking at the stars. My favourite recurring dream is that I'm walking somewhere and suddenly the sky is full of millions of beautiful bright stars and constellations I've never scene before. It's such a comforting dream.

Well, if you're being super literal, yes, YABU.

I think it's vanishingly unlikely 'each' star supports like.

I also think we don't know how or to what prehistoric people prayed.

But I do like starts and I agree they are pretty.

The thing that gets me is that they might have died unimaginable amounts of time before, but we're still seeing their light. I love that. It is amazing. The closest to time travel we'll ever get.

I don't think OP is being super literal. More reflective.

Sorry - my brain is in fragments at the moment.

It's a wonderful thought. And even if they are empty perhaps one day we will fill them ourselves.

I eont think every star supports life. But I think there must be lots of life out there. And I dont believe it has anything to do with water. We are made of the elements on our planet, life on another planet will be made of the elements there.
Stars are amazing when you think of what they really are, rather than the twinkling little lights I the sky.

Yup, and just like us they will be worrying about the price of gin rocketing 🚀 🚀 🚀 and what they are going to cook for dinner tomorrow.

Well, being super-literal I doubt any of the stars have life... too flipping hot.
But that some of them have planets with life - sure, it seems unlikely were the only place if has evolved. It may be quite different, although as a chemist I'd say there are very good reasons to suppose it's more likely if there's liquid water.

...that should have been we're the only place it...

There will be lots of life out there. The question is what sort of life? The Earth has existed for around 4,500 million years. Although it looks like there was some life after 800 million years, the first animals appeared at somewhere between 3,500 million years and 4,000 million years. Dinosaurs came at 4,300 million years and lasted until 4,460 million years.

Recorded human history starts at 4,499.993 million years. The Industrial Revolution starts at 4,499.9998 million years.

(Yes, I know those figures can't be exact. I just want to give some idea of the timescales.)

@SarahAndQuack - I'm so sorry. There was meant to be a smiley on there. My post sounds so snotty! I hope you're ok?

Literally, no, but I do like to think about the other worlds. An individual on another planet, seeing the light from our sun. I am both sad and comforted by the fact that our species will likely not meet them in my lifetime.

Thanks for the replies. Kids are all now asleep and I'm uncomfortable on the floor head out the tent. No doubt will be bitten to buggary but feel like a tiny part of a massive universe

It's an interesting question - does life always lead to sentient life? Perhaps, as having senses is an evolutionary advantage. But does it always lead to self-aware, conscious life?

Exactly @ErrolTheDragon - it doesn't have to be life as we know it does it?

I love going outside to look at the stars (username) I know what you mean by feeling some kind of connection.
I like to believe we’re not a total freak of nature. There must be some kind of life out there somewhere.

Is there other life out there? Almost certainly. Has this universe created other intelligent life? Very probably. Is there other intelligent life in the universe at the moment? Maybe. Is there other intelligent life in the universe at the moment near enough for there to be any contact? Incredibly unlikely.

YANBU.

Won't be too long before we've got a better idea of how common or rare life is. Scientists are developing ways to see what gases are in the air on other planets. If we find a planet with air full of oxygen that's probably being made by something living.

But look at Earth. Single celled life appeared really quickly, but it took billions of years for multicellular stuff to evolve. And hundreds of millions of years more before us.

So intelligence might be rare.

YANBU. Alien life might take a form that's totally outside our experience or even comprehension.

To take a random example, it might be so tiny that we couldn't even register it on the most powerful microscope we have. Or it might be so large that our entire known universe is nestling in a crack on an alien's kitchen floor tile . Our temperate climate might be the equivalent of minus 1,000,000,000 degrees centigrade to life forms adapted to an existence on a sun.

In short, when you try to imagine alien life forms you have to wipe every image you have of 'life' and 'existence' from your mind - and even then you probably won't even get close.

YABU as most planetary systems probably don't have life at all, and most of those that do it will be microorganisms.

There won't be a large percentage with life like us, which I assume is what you were thinking of. And a lot of them will have destroyed themselves, like we seem to be aiming to do.

But it's highly likely there are some out there.

There are more than 100 BILLION galaxies.

Let that sink in and then tell me we are the only planet in the universe to have intelligent life.

I think with the universe being the size that it is then it’s possible there could be some form of life out there somewhere.

What blows my mind is that the light from the stars takes so long to travel and be visible from earth that the stars we see aren’t all current, some will be the reflections of stars hundreds or thousands of years old and their light has only that reached us.

Lovely thread, thanks OP. I had never thought about people thousands of years ago observing the same stars as us. It's comforting.

Betelgeuse is suggesting that it may be imminently about to go Nova, which would be just about the most amazing thing I think you could witness in person, given how short human lives are and the age of the universe.

I'm not personally convinced of the merits of the arguments postulating intelligent life elsewhere simply because of the sheer numbers of possible planets. One thing's for sure, until one of us invents faster than light, 'warp', or inter-dimensional travel, we're not going to be encountering them even if they do exist.

Theres work being done to find planets most likely to have life.

'Exoplanets in goldilocks zone' is a good place to start searching