Thread: Science about to prove the existence of life outside of our planet?

Given that the universe has been around for billions of years, and humans as a species have only been on this planet for a few thousand years, I think it's reasonable to assume that there has been plenty of time for other civilizations to develop. After all, we managed to pull it off quickly, even with all the unnecessary conflicts we've had.

Also, with our massive output of electromagnetic radiation, we would not be very difficult to notice if some form of life with the technology to detect it passed close enough to us. We already have the technology to detect a similar output of radio waves.

But as the Universe is so infinite, and we have only been here for such a small fraction of time, it is very likely that we just haven't been found yet. It takes light over 100 billion years to travel across the universe, and we can't come close to those speeds.

Given the universe has billions of stars...

This is Mars... same star as ours. Only other planet with a history of being able to have supported life in a solar system also shows signs it once existed. What does that tell you about the nature of genesis? Of course, the data isn't out yet so it's way too soon to call.

But the point there's no reason to assume the universe isn't teeming with life. There are a lot of possible reasons for the fact that our civilization hasn't received first contact yet, my favorite so far is the shared dimension.

I read a while back that something like 80% of astronomers think that there was once life on Mars.

The most likely candidate for there to be life currently is Europa; in the ocean under the ice there could well be hydrothermal vents like those which it is speculated started life on Earth.

Unfortunately missions there keep getting delayed, and it'd be quite an engineering task to get through the ice.

He's got a cool name though.

Originally Posted by arby

Just reasons to believe whatever you will.