alien life possibility is pathetic

[wollery]

Sun, wrong, there are at most 50 billion stars in the galaxy, and then you have to go through a strict set of criteria:

planet must be right size, sun must be right type, right area in galaxy, right age, large jupiter to protect it from meteorites and asteroids, no black holes near, not near inner rim of galaxy, etc and so on. Why is it that you dont follow the logic that life is non existent elsewhere? Isnt it common sense that the universe is devoid of other life?

No. It's happened once, why can't it happen again in a virtually infinite Universe?

 

[Reality Check]

Sun, wrong, there are at most 50 billion stars in the galaxy, and then you have to go through a strict set of criteria:

planet must be right size, sun must be right type, right area in galaxy, right age, large jupiter to protect it from meteorites and asteroids, no black holes near, not near inner rim of galaxy, etc and so on. Why is it that you dont follow the logic that life is non existent elsewhere? Isnt it common sense that the universe is devoid of other life?

As your OP states this is about life in the universe (not the galaxy).

Galaxies range in size from 10 million to 1 trillion stars. The Milky way contains between 200 billion stars and 400 billion stars. There are at least 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.
Thus a estimate of the number of stars in the observable universe is 200 billion * 100 billion = 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Lets look at that number again: 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars!

And we have not even mentioned that the observable universe is just part of the entire universe!

 

[makaya325]

Reality check, just because the universe is big doesnt prove anything. It can be big, and empty of space. Our universe is big! Whoa, big deal, Its also big and DEADLY. Incredibly hostile, and the fact that not one shred of any kind of et life so far is damning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

 

[makaya325]

Galaxy, the 100 billion galaxy # is highly exxagerated. The most accurate estimates range from a couple billion to 50 billion at the most

 

[IMST]

Galaxy, the 100 billion galaxy # is highly exxagerated. The most accurate estimates range from a couple billion to 50 billion at the most

I assume you have evidence that the consensus of opinion among astronomers is incorrect on this matter and the range you accurate better fits our observations. Would you care to share it with us?

 

[makaya325]

Its the fact that since scientists have lost their sense of logic to debunk any possibility of et life, they just sit their looking for imaginary earth-like planets, which will nevet be found.

 

[IMST]

the fact that not one shred of any kind of et life so far is damning.

It's not. We can only observe the planets in our own solar system in any detail. We'd have to detect unambiguous radio signals from other systems at this point. And JUST TODAY observations on Mars that could be indicative of life were announced.

We'd have to be within about 70 light years to have any hope of detecting life on Earth if we were somewhere else based on when our radio broadcasts started leaking out. If memory serves there only tens of stars in that range.

 

[IMST]

Its the fact that since scientists have lost their sense of logic to debunk any possibility of et life, they just sit their looking for imaginary earth-like planets, which will nevet be found.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9796321
There's one!

 

[godless dave]

Godless, our sun-like stars make up only 5% of the stars in our galaxy.

That's extremely common, like I said.

 

[Roboramma]

Galaxy, the 100 billion galaxy # is highly exxagerated. The most accurate estimates range from a couple billion to 50 billion at the most

Please offer some evidence.

Please make it strong enough to contradict, for instance, this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy

There are probably more than 100 billion (1011) galaxies in the observable universe.[7] Most galaxies are 1,000 to 100,000[4] parsecs in diameter and are usually separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs).[8]

And from the same page:

Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million[3] (107) stars up to giants with one trillion[4] (1012) stars, all orbiting a common center of mass.

 

[learner]

I'll bet a buck on that!

Start a poll!

There may or may not be Alien life out there. This is uncertain. What is certain is a steady stream of mugs on this planet. Is there a maximum bet? I see riches here.

 

[godless dave]

Sun, wrong, there are at most 50 billion stars in the galaxy, and then you have to go through a strict set of criteria:

Why?

planet must be right size,

unwarranted assumption

sun must be right type

unwarranted assumption

right area in galaxy

unwarranted assumption

right age

unwarranted assumption

large jupiter to protect it from meteorites and asteroids

unwarranted assumption

no black holes near

this is probably true, but there are so few black holes this doesn't narrow the field much

not near inner rim of galaxy

"Inner rim" doesn't make sense. I assume you mean not near the core, which may be true but that still leaves a lot of space in whatever galaxy you're looking at

 

[Foster Zygote]

There is no life on other planets. Please return to normal discussions. I will rejoin you shortly. I have to stop my penis from vibrating.

Can't you simply detach it for now?

 

[arthwollipot]

"Most" mainstream scientists? Please name five, and provide citations and quotes that support your allegation. Also please tell us which area of science they currently are researching in. I wouldn't necessarily trust someone in the field of political science or engineering to have an authoratative opinion on cosmology.

Peter ward
donald browlee
michael hart
James randi

Numero uno: that's four, not five. Numero two-o: no citations and quotes. Numero three-o: You haven't stated which area of science they work in. Numero four-o: oh, never mind.

Suffice to say that the challenge was not met.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Please offer some evidence.

Please make it strong enough to contradict, for instance, this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy


And from the same page:

And wasn't an announcement just made that observations of the rotation of the Milky Way indicate it to be about 50% larger that previously thought?

 

[JcR]

As Carl Sagan liked to say... Billions and Billions.

 

[Roboramma]

But im talking about et life. Isnt it so ignorant and wooish to suggest that we arent the only life in the universe?

Actually I'd say the opposite. Do you think you know all of the possible forms life could take? Every possible reaction that could lead to something that we would call life? If not, how do you claim to know what environments it could or could not exist in?

Come on, does anyone see the incredibly complex events on earth that made it even POSSIBLE for the simplest of life to form?

Increadibly complex? No, please tell me what that was. Considering that life started on earth very shortly after it could have, that is, just after the earth began to cool, I would be surprised if on similar planets it didn't do so after some time.

How can anyone believe it is even possible for 100's of unique events to happen just right on other planets.

Which hundreds of unique events are those?
Given the billions of other stars and billions of other galaxies, even if life arising is a very rare occurance, it's still likely to have happened in more places than just here.

You need the right sun, the right planet size, the right galaxy, the right moon, etc and the list goes on and on from there. Why do many of you fall for the et life credibility?

I don't buy any of those, please give some evidence that they are needed.

In another post, for instance, you suggest that the presence of a jupiter like planet is required for life, but that's absurd. Microbial life, at least, is pretty likely to go on after meteor strikes, particularly the stuff that exists miles underground. Large strikes may simply cause evolutionary experiments to occur at a greater pace: witness what happens after extinction events.

 

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Sun, wrong, there are at most 50 billion stars in the galaxy, and then you have to go through a strict set of criteria:

Ok - I'm going to make a point-by-point comment, here, so I'm not going to quote each one....

planet must be right size

Why?

An aquatic species doesn't much care about the gravity because it's pretty much neutral buoyancy. Light gravity or heavy, the weight of the medium and of the creature exist under the same gravity, so the organism would float equally well. All it needs is a way so that its internal organs don't slosh around weighting a ton each.

Same would go with floating gas bags in a gaseous environment.

sun must be right type

Why?

In the aquatic species above, all you need is liquid... ummm... liquid! A sun a bit too hot or too cool would just move the life a bit deeper into the liquid.

As for too ultra-violet-ey... well... more energy is good for a lot of living things, providing said living things aren't prone to things like skin cancer.

right area in galaxy

Why?

An organism that thrives in an area of harder radiation (further in) or much less radiation (further out) isn't outside the realm of possibilities. All you really need is enough radiation to make chemical processes possible, and not enough radiation to make the same processes unstable or random.

right age

Why?

A younger planet just means more seismic activity and new gasses being introduced all the time. As long as the essential gasses don't get diluted too much, that wouldn't be a problem. (To wit: Volcanic vent tube worms have an REDUCTION metabolism, while humans have an OXIDATION metabolism. We burn organic fuel. They, with the help of their symbiotic microbes, UN-burn hydrogen sulfide [I think it is] to get their life-ey thing on.) (This they do under the pressure of up to a mile of sea water, and at temperatures very close to boiling, speaking of harsh environments.)

An older planet means less seismic activity, so probably a thinning atmosphere. Two possible adaptations to this are:

1) Creatures with slower metabolisms, and

2) A symbiotic relationship between two organisms, one which uses its energy to reproduce and compress the thin atmosphere into usable, "tanks," and a second organism who uses the compressed atmosphere in the, "tanks," to fan the flames of its metabolism to move around, doing its life-ey thing, and in the process disseminating the larva of the compressor guys.

Heck - they could even be the males and females of the same species! (I'd bet the lay-about wind-bags would be the males, but that may just be wishful thinking on my part as a male lay-about wind-bag.)

large jupiter to protect it from meteorites and asteroids

I'll give you this one. I can't think of any advanced organism that could develop under the condition of periodically and frequently being blown back to the single-cell stage.

On the other hand, this is me, so my feeling that way probably means it isn't the case. Watch some darned 1,000,000 acre sentient creature who can tolerate the occasional loss of a few hundred thousand acres of itself spring up....

no black holes near

Why?

Ever read Larry Niven's, "The Integral Trees?"
(Hail, Wikipedia, full of stuff, blessed art thou, and blessed art thy Fruit of the Looms!)

Ok - not likely, but POSSIBLE!

not near inner rim of galaxy

Why?

I think I covered this above.

etc and so on.

Why?

...and so on and so on and so on.

Why is it that you dont follow the logic that life is non existent elsewhere? Isnt it common sense that the universe is devoid of other life?

First:

The question, "isn't it common sense," at the beginning of an argument is usually an indicator that the following argument is wrong.

The difference between, "common sense," and, "the way things actually are," is most often separated by the fact that things that are UNcommon don't yield to common sense, and (in my experience anyhow) COMMON things are the LEAST COMMON things in this particular universe.

We just make up our minds that something like a dandelion, a thing of real beauty that springs up overnight, then, overnight again, turns into this wondrous, delicate ball of fluff, is, "common," just because we see enough of them on our front lawns for them to be considered a pest.

Second:

Number of stars in the Milky Way: 200 to 400 billion.
(Hail, Wikipedia, full of stuff, blessed art ... oh... uhhh... I did that already.)
The Hubble 'Scope found, in a deep-field poke at teh sky, about 1,500 galaxies in a tiny speck (the size of a dime at 75 feet) of sky!

So, to quote H.01.2 How many galaxies in the Universe?

.... Depending on just what level of statistical error can be tolerated, catalogs of galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field list about 3000. This field covers an area of sky of only about 0.04 degrees on a side, meaning that we would need 27,000,000 such patches to cover the whole sky. Ignoring such factors as absorption by dust in our own Galaxy, which make it harder to see outside in some directions, the Hubble telescope is capable of detecting about 80 billion galaxies (although not all of these within the foreseeable future!). ....

So: 80 billion galaxies, each with about about 200 billion stars...

That's...

8.0x10^10 x 2.0x10^11 = 16.0x10^21, right?
(Arrgh! Get away form me with that 'normalized form' stuff! It came out with number that lets me count commas, so that all I care about!)
(Neener neener neener!)
(so THERE!)

16,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Roughly.

That's... roughly... a lot of stars, and that's only the VISIBLE ones! Why couldn't we have a creature that uses radio frequency electromagnetic energy to live instead of visible light and near visible light electromagnetic energy?

Even if life is a one-in-a-trillion event, that's still... ummm...
1.6x10^22 (THERE!. Normalized Form)
(Are you HAPPY NOW?!?!?)
divided by 1.0x10^12

That comes out to something like 1.6x10^10 stars.

Of course, that assumes, possibly incorrectly, that all stars have at least one planet.

Like I said: I'd make that bet. I just wouldn't bet too much.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Reality check, just because the universe is big doesnt prove anything. It can be big, and empty of space. Our universe is big! Whoa, big deal, Its also big and DEADLY. Incredibly hostile, and the fact that not one shred of any kind of et life so far is damning.

I don't wish to derail this thread, but what you're saying seems contradictory to your assertion that bigfoot might still be out there despite the lack of actual bigfoot flesh. Of course there's "not one shred" of evidence about ET life at this point. Maybe somebody will correct my math, but in general terms not finding ET life in our limited ability to search (distance as well as time) is like sitting on the coast of Washington state, crossing your eyes to see the tip of your nose for a split second and saying there's no bigfoot in the forests. Can you explain how you differentiate the two?

When you brought this up over on Unexplained-Mysteries.com you were harping on the earth being in a "safe zone" of some sort. Can you elaborate on that here?

 

[IMST]

sitting on the coast of Washington state,

Not to derail the derail too far, but come summer this phrase represents a very pleasant experience.

And just a guess, but I bet the Safe Zone he referred to is the range from the star where water can be a liquid, but I could be wrong.