# Your thoughts on extraterrestrial life...



## cole (20 Nov 2008)

According to the BBC, there are billions of earth like planets just in our galaxy. According to NASA there could be 500 billion galaxies. Statistically then the chances of life on other planets must be huge. It would be inconceivable if life didn't exist elsewhere. Which leads us to the next question? Where do we fit in in all of this? What if we are the most advanced life form in the universe.


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## z103 (20 Nov 2008)

> According to the BBC, there are billions of earth like planets just in our galaxy. According to NASA there could be 500 billion galaxies.


You believe all that nonsense? There are only a few hundred stars painted on the sky, and only 5 or 6 planets. Our best hope, Mars, is barren.
Maybe the chances of life happening are hundreds of billions to one. (Incidentally, the odds of life on another planet are either 1 or 0)


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## z103 (20 Nov 2008)

You were also wondering where we all fit into the whole scheme of things. Well the secret to life, the Universe, and everything is [deleted by Clubman]


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_; Today at 08:05 PM.                                                                   Reason: Breached posting guidelines. Disclosing the secret of life, the Universe and everything is banned on AAM
_


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## cole (20 Nov 2008)

Very good.


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## Purple (20 Nov 2008)

Visualising the size of the universe is almost impossible. Think of our planet as a grain of sand in a galaxy the size of the earth and then think of our galaxy as a grain of sand in the universe and you are still nowhere near the scale. 
So that’s the distance plane... don’t forget the time plane.

A good description of the time span of galaxies is to imagine a rock one hundred miles high and one hundred miles across. Once every thousand years a small bird lands on the rock and sharpens its beak. When the rock is warn away by the bird one day has passed in the life of a galaxy.

So that’s the time plane. Not only do we have to be close to extraterrestrial life in the distance plane, we also have to be close in the time plane since the planet, star system or even galaxy that they lived on could have disappeared trillions of years ago.


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## Purple (20 Nov 2008)

Duplicate post


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## Ron Burgundy (20 Nov 2008)

cole said:


> According to the BBC, there are billions of earth like planets just in our galaxy. According to NASA there could be 500 billion galaxies. Statistically then the chances of life on other planets must be huge. It would be inconceivable if life didn't exist elsewhere. Which leads us to the next question? Where do we fit in in all of this? What if we are the most advanced life form in the universe.



Hi Robbie,

I loved Rock Dj and your stuff with Take That,

When will there be a new release from you ????


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## DavyJones (20 Nov 2008)

I think if would be arrogant of us to belive there is not life outside our galaxy. It may be life byond our understanding I.E it may not have any of the seven earth charateristics of life.

Not sure if I belive in alien UFO . they are more probably top secret military aircraft/weapons. It suits goverments to have an excuse when they are spotted.


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## sam h (20 Nov 2008)

> _Disclosing the secret of life, the Universe and everything is banned on AAM_


 
Ah clubman, you are such a spoilsport....nowI have to go & find all that stuff out for myself!  Ah well, I don't have much on this weekend, should keep me busy for a few hours.


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## Purple (20 Nov 2008)

sam h said:


> Ah clubman, you are such a spoilsport....nowI have to go & find all that stuff out for myself!


The meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42... everyone knows that.


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## sam h (20 Nov 2008)

Thats great, Purple....you've saved me a load of time pondering this for at least 2 hours over the weekend.

Now I can use that valuable time pondering the woder of navel fluff


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## Purple (20 Nov 2008)

sam h said:


> Thats great, Purple....you've saved me a load of time pondering this for at least 2 hours over the weekend.
> 
> Now I can use that valuable time pondering the woder of navel fluff



[broken link removed]


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## Towger (21 Nov 2008)

Clubman - It is life Jim, but not as we know it!


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## Caveat (21 Nov 2008)

I think it is stastically next to impossible that we would be the only intelligent life in the galaxy.

But I also think it is a mistake to assume that this 'life' will necessarily require the same conditions as human or animal life on earth.


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## Purple (21 Nov 2008)

Caveat said:


> I think it is stastically next to impossible that we would be the only intelligent life in the galaxy.


yes but what are the chances of it being close to us in space or time; that's what matters?


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## Caveat (21 Nov 2008)

I know what you mean but if it takes a probe approx. 9 years to reach Pluto, well I dunno, very new, different frontiers could be reached in 30 or so years I would have thought?


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## cole (21 Nov 2008)

I suppose is depends on what do you mean by close. The nearest star (other than the sun) is 4 light years away.

Then again, if there's the odd worm hole around it shouldn't make much difference assuming we can find the technology.

Purple: I thought your descriptions of the vastness of space and time very good. I never really thought about life exisiting and then vanishing over billions of years...I always thought that once life exisited then some life would always exist no matter how simple.


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## gillarosa (21 Nov 2008)

Of course there is!! Where do you think Enda Kenny came from??


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## csirl (21 Nov 2008)

DavyJones said:


> I think if would be arrogant of us to belive there is not life outside our galaxy. It may be life byond our understanding I.E it may not have any of the seven earth charateristics of life.
> 
> Not sure if I belive in alien UFO . they are more probably top secret military aircraft/weapons. It suits goverments to have an excuse when they are spotted.


 
Agree with this. I find it hard to believe that the nutcases who stalk Roswell see no connection between the US governments experiments with odd shaped aircraft such as saucer shaped flying wings in a nearest airbase to Roswell during the 50s-70s and sightings of saucer shaped "spacecraft" in the sky! Even the prototype of the stealth bomber that flew in the early 1970s would have looked like an alien spacecraft if you'd never seen one before.


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## Purple (21 Nov 2008)

cole said:


> Purple: I thought your descriptions of the vastness of space and time very good. I never really thought about life exisiting and then vanishing over billions of years...I always thought that once life exisited then some life would always exist no matter how simple.



Thanks cole, think in terms of trillions rather than billions or if the distance axis on the graph is a billion miles long and we are a microbe moving at the relative speed of a slug then the time axis is much longer (maybe a few million times longer). Now there may be other microbes in one of the quadrants of that graph but we have to meet them in space and time... that’s the hard part.


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## ninsaga (21 Nov 2008)

Jeez everyone - its as obvious as hell....... we are just an experiment being conducted by a superior alien life force..... think of us as the ants in a pet antfarm....... every once and a while the baby alien gets hold of the jar - puts us in their fridge (hence the ice age) to near their heater (polar ice caps melting), gives us a shake (earthquakes & tsunami's)....mixes up some other species from the other jar (George Bush, Pat Kenny etc)

....now doesn;t it all make sense!


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## csirl (21 Nov 2008)

What about the theory going around physics about there being multiple dimensions in space and the big bang was caused by a collision between two dimensions? Could be extraterrestrial life in other dimensions.


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## ninsaga (21 Nov 2008)

csirl said:


> What about the theory going around physics about there being multiple dimensions in space and the big bang was caused by a collision between two dimensions? Could be extraterrestrial life in other dimensions.



not sure about that 'cause I know for a FACT that I work with some really strange species - definitely not human!


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## NorthDrum (21 Nov 2008)

Who counts these stars ("Billions of stars").

Of course there are E.T.'s, perhaps not ones that we would imagine (6 foot manlike, big eyes, long fingers, no english, plays with probes!) but if they simply find some sort of microscopic organism then is that not prooving that there is life outside of the world (I nearly said Ireland!).


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## cole (21 Nov 2008)

NorthDrum said:


> Who counts these stars ("Billions of stars").


 
NASA.

I agree that life outside earth may be very different from our own e.g. it may not be carbon based, maybe silicon based (it could be argued that some of our own "life forms" are mostly silicon based).


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## Caveat (21 Nov 2008)

cole said:


> I agree that life outside earth may be very different from our own


 
I'd say it's pretty much guaranteed.  

What annoys me is the way scientists proudly declare that since there is no evidence of water on X planet, and because the atmosphere is 'poisonous', ipso facto, there cannot be life.

How do _they_ know?

Look at earth: deep sea fish who live in pressures that would crush a human in seconds.  

Cockroaches are infamous for the extremes of conditions they can live in and diets they can exist on.

Even plants live on what we exhale and cannot live on, and produce what we need.

Surely on other planets conditions for life are likely to be even more bizarre?


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## cole (21 Nov 2008)

Agreed. I think some scientists need to improve their imaginations and get creative. We can't assume that just because water is essential for life on earth that it's essential elsewhere.

Add to that list [broken link removed] that live in 
extemely saline conditions, 
extremely high temperatures (almost boiling water)
bacteria that use iron as food
bacteria that live in ice 
etc


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## GeneralZod (21 Nov 2008)

Silicon based life is already a staple of bad science fiction or at least of unconvincing computer graphics.


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