LOL: http://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/12903192862
― StanM, Monday, 26 April 2010 21:20 (fourteen years ago) link
this is a topic i find fascinating, but the only honest answer to this question is "we don't know, and have no way of knowing until we find some."
here's some interesting arguments from the naysayers:
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/steven/?p=7
...the total lack of evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence suggests that among the all the many possible numbers of civilizations compatible with Drake-style calculations, very low numbers are the most likely to be right. As Fermi observed, if they were out there, they would have been here, and we would have noticed, or more likely failed to exist in the first place.
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2007/01/aliens-stop-looking/
As another poster points out, because the sample set of life is 1, the standard deviation is infinite, so there is no reason for us to think that the vastness of the cosmos implies anything about the probability of life. It’s that intuitive feeling of the universe being big that causes people to think that there must somehow be aliens. But that bigness is merely big to us. The configuration space is so much larger, and indeed, most atomic configurations are not realized in this universe. People’s intuition is as if there is some cosmic arbiter that says, “okay, it’s been 100 billion planets, time to seed this one with life now!” Why at 100 billion? Why not seed life on every 10^10^123 planets, instead of merely every 10^11? The multiverse is infinite. There can be an infinite number of intelligent civilizations, each living alone in their own universe. To think that the vastness of space implies the presence of aliens is itself statistically ridiculous.
― max arrrrrgh, Monday, 26 April 2010 21:37 (fourteen years ago) link
and intelligent life is a whole other ballgame. think about how long life on earth existed without humans. and how long we've actually been sending out radio signals.
― max arrrrrgh, Monday, 26 April 2010 21:48 (fourteen years ago) link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/nasascientistfindsevidenceofalienlife
is this it? because i wanna be the guy who breaks the news to ilx.
― end aggro business now (Hunt3r), Sunday, 6 March 2011 04:39 (thirteen years ago) link
my dad sent me a link to that journal article. the abstract contains the fantastic, fantastic phrase "indigenous to this meteor".
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 6 March 2011 04:41 (thirteen years ago) link
do they have enough material for... resurrection?
― Philip Nunez, Sunday, 6 March 2011 04:54 (thirteen years ago) link
I was all excited until I read some of the comments on that foxnews interview. Stupid godfuckers ("their monkey theory can't explain the majesty of the LORD" - oh fuck off and die already) - I wish aliens came over here and just annihilated our entire planet right now. We're not worth discovering.
― StanM, Sunday, 6 March 2011 14:11 (thirteen years ago) link
alien fossil taking a free ride on a meteor is the plot to a lot of horror/sci-fi films. i am excited!
― homosexual II, Sunday, 6 March 2011 15:16 (thirteen years ago) link
<3
― Partisan Cheese Hostel (latebloomer), Sunday, 6 March 2011 15:18 (thirteen years ago) link
stoked, but no one irl seems to share my enthusiasm. my wife's response when I told her: "wow cool hey would you mind walking the dog?"
― Darin, Sunday, 6 March 2011 21:09 (thirteen years ago) link
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/did_scientists_discover_bacter.php
― Partisan Cheese Hostel (latebloomer), Sunday, 6 March 2011 21:27 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.theonion.com/articles/mean-scientists-dash-hopes-of-life-on-mars,1423/
― Darin, Sunday, 6 March 2011 21:31 (thirteen years ago) link
Thx for both those links, guys!
― StanM, Sunday, 6 March 2011 21:32 (thirteen years ago) link
I wish aliens came over here and just annihilated our entire planet right now.
we have already started iirc
― Head goes goes goes (Schlafsack), Sunday, 6 March 2011 21:39 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.mentalfloss.com/store/images/D/pluto.jpg
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 6 March 2011 21:41 (thirteen years ago) link
Hello.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=habitable-planet-gj-667cc
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 2 February 2012 18:45 (twelve years ago) link
I was going to suggest that this is Lou Reed's "new planetary system", but unfortunately according to Vogt "It's pretty deficient in metals" .
― quad octets or death! (snoball), Thursday, 2 February 2012 18:52 (twelve years ago) link
The low metallicity (seen in the parent stars absorption spectra) means the parent star is a population II star formed rather early in the galaxy's existence. If there's enough silicon & iron for a planet 4.5 times Earth's size to accrete, there's likely enough carbon for organic chemistry (and life).
The problem with habitable zones around red dwarfs like Gliese 667c is that they're so near the star that the planets are liable to be tidally locked with one face permanently facing the star (like Mercury and the Gallilean moons of Jupiter in our own system). Gliese 667cC has an orbit of 0.28 AU (26 million miles), so that may not be a problem.
To the OP, I'm largely in agreement with Stephen Webb in Where Is Everybody? and Peter Ward in Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe. The universe is probably teeming with bacteria-like life, but complexity and intelligence are exceedingly rare.
― Sanpaku, Thursday, 2 February 2012 19:15 (twelve years ago) link
Keep asking for a Pluto:Revolve in Peace t-shirt from the Hall of Science but haven't received one yet, guess I'll have to get it for myself.
Interested to read those books Sanpaku mentions.
Seeing this thread on new answers immediately made me think of Martin S.
― I Can Only Give You Every Zing (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 February 2012 19:20 (twelve years ago) link
Of course I have met many of them and they all think Earth sucks.
― The Cheerfull Turtle (Latham Green), Thursday, 2 February 2012 20:05 (twelve years ago) link
Earth: the toilet venue of the galaxy
― quad octets or death! (snoball), Thursday, 2 February 2012 20:06 (twelve years ago) link
They don't like all the wrappers and litter about.
― The Cheerfull Turtle (Latham Green), Friday, 3 February 2012 15:51 (twelve years ago) link
aJacques Vallée
bthat lawrence poem upthread is pretty good
― dell (del), Saturday, 4 February 2012 14:47 (twelve years ago) link
there is no life anywhere else in the universe & there is no way a colony of humans could survive a trip to any other potentially habitable planet
― smhphony orchestra (crüt), Thursday, 8 May 2014 16:40 (ten years ago) link
whew glad that's settled
― stadow shevens (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 8 May 2014 16:43 (ten years ago) link
I would actually feel glad if this was the case
― DDD, Thursday, 8 May 2014 16:52 (ten years ago) link
Consciousness downloaded into nanobots and bodies 3D printed at the other end, how about that?
― めんどくさい (Matt #2), Thursday, 8 May 2014 17:31 (ten years ago) link
Burroughs thought of it first
― stadow shevens (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 8 May 2014 17:31 (ten years ago) link
also, there is no way santa claus could possibly visit all of those houses in one night
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 8 May 2014 17:35 (ten years ago) link
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-venus/potential-sign-of-alien-life-detected-on-inhospitable-venus-idUSKBN2652GO
― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Monday, 14 September 2020 21:38 (three years ago) link
Remember this?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55071058
Its twin has just been deployed in Romania:
https://adevarul.ro/locale/piatra-neamt/un-misterios-monolit-metal-similar-gasit-recent-sua-descoperit-cetate-dacica-romania-1_5fc1178c5163ec42714d36bf/index.html
(Sorry, I couldn’t find an English equivalent but it includes photos and a video embed.)
― pomenitul, Friday, 27 November 2020 20:31 (three years ago) link
oh god david surber is totally one of these cumstains who reads every craig childs fart in existence. going to be about 500 more douchebags in utvs on the lockhart basin road next spring.
― cosmic vision | bleak epiphany | erotic email (map), Friday, 27 November 2020 20:40 (three years ago) link
That Aimless/Martin Skidmore dialogue really cracks me up for some reason - a shame to have missed the golden age of early ilx.
― Luna Schlosser, Friday, 27 November 2020 21:15 (three years ago) link
love that there was a poster named "sb" in 2003. very prescient
― Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) (Neanderthal), Friday, 27 November 2020 21:53 (three years ago) link
Yeah that was good xpostWeird thinking about the dates on those.This one made me smile:DJ MartianPosted: 3 October 2001 at 01:00:00Yes, there is life on Mars.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 27 November 2020 23:15 (three years ago) link
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-55212336
― pomenitul, Monday, 7 December 2020 15:21 (three years ago) link
DJ Rob da Bank, another island resident, was also among those who took a stroll to see the sight for themselves.He mused: "I'm not sure if it's aliens, a Coldplay PR stunt or a local mirror dealer drumming up trade, but it got us all down the beach anyway."
He mused: "I'm not sure if it's aliens, a Coldplay PR stunt or a local mirror dealer drumming up trade, but it got us all down the beach anyway."
Otm. There's one here some 20 miles away now too, btw. I'm still guessing Coldplay PR stunt.
― A Scampo Darkly (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 7 December 2020 19:25 (three years ago) link