At Least 100 Billion Planets

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Profile Ket

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Message 1201146 - Posted: 29 Feb 2012, 23:23:02 UTC

Lets make things simple and not get carried away. Whats the chances of, lets say ONE planet in the region of 300 light years or so having a intelligent race on it? Slim to none would be my guess. Do I think planets exist that are perfectly habitable but have no life beyond insect and sea life exist within that 300 light year range? Absolutely. Now lets address the "aliens", they must certainly exist in this galaxy, its just too damn big with too many stars and planets for them not to. Do I think they are within range of our feeble attempts to "make contact" let alone be near Earth? Absolutely not. Life may be abundant, but intelligent life isn't going to be like putting your hand into a bag of sweets and pulling out a fistful. The Milkyway is massive, but taking into consideration all the factors involved for intelligent life not to get wiped out or snuff itself out, would it not be realistic to think a reasonable number on intelligent life in our galaxy (weather it be as advanced as us or more advanced than us) should be put around 10 - 100 civillisations? The Milkyway is big, bug there are FAR bigger galaxies out there than the Milkyway. If the Milky way was swimming with intelligent life we would surely have solid proof of such by now.
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Message 1201248 - Posted: 1 Mar 2012, 2:56:46 UTC - in response to Message 1201146.  
Last modified: 1 Mar 2012, 2:58:24 UTC

If the Milky way was swimming with intelligent life we would surely have solid proof of such by now.


That may not necessarily be true. We don't know how long civilizations last or how much time there is between them. We also don't know how long it takes for a civilization to become spacefaring. They may be at our stage of development, more developed but still with no means of traveling vast distances, or they may be cavemen.

There may have been advanced civilizations in the past as well, even on Earth. Earth and the universe is very old.

Space so incredibly vast that contacting other alien civilizations within any decent amount of time just isn't feasible. Even light barely crawls through space since it moves so slow. This is the main reason why I think we haven't really heard anything. Everyone is WAY out of reach.
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Message 1201304 - Posted: 1 Mar 2012, 9:31:37 UTC

And of course, by my way of thinking, we must consider whether or not a space faring society would want to make contact with us. I think not. And given that set of parameters I think they could remain undetected for a very long time.
Bob DeWoody

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Message 1201332 - Posted: 1 Mar 2012, 11:57:00 UTC - in response to Message 1201324.  

The way that I'm looking at it is that any signal that we detect will have taken millions of years to have reached us, and any civilisation that sent it could have long ago blown itself up and ceased to exist.


I think you mean thousands of years instead of millions.
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Message 1201458 - Posted: 1 Mar 2012, 20:17:30 UTC - in response to Message 1201248.  
Last modified: 1 Mar 2012, 20:18:50 UTC

If the Milky way was swimming with intelligent life we would surely have solid proof of such by now.


That may not necessarily be true. We don't know how long civilizations last or how much time there is between them. We also don't know how long it takes for a civilization to become spacefaring. They may be at our stage of development, more developed but still with no means of traveling vast distances, or they may be cavemen.

There may have been advanced civilizations in the past as well, even on Earth. Earth and the universe is very old.

Space so incredibly vast that contacting other alien civilizations within any decent amount of time just isn't feasible. Even light barely crawls through space since it moves so slow. This is the main reason why I think we haven't really heard anything. Everyone is WAY out of reach.


Thats my point when I say about another race blowing itself up. Its a miracle we haven't blown ourselves up. The chances of other races doing so is equally as high perhaps moreso than us even. For that reason I think life on other worlds (regardless of if they are habitable to us or not) is extremely high, but actual intelligent life much much rarer. Sadly I'll never be alive to know the exact number of other intelligent life in our galaxy (by intelligent I mean those of at least equal intellect to ours) but to say other intelligent civillisations is between 10 - 100 in our galaxy makes sence to me. I would be strongly inclined to think spacefaring civillisations certainly no more than 10. To get that kind of knowledge would certainly take a more mature civillisation to ne at least 10,000 years more advanced than us. I can't remember who else said what so I'll generalise, superfast space travel can't be ruled out. If we survive even another 1000 years I'd think humans would be capable of extending reach to 20 lightyears, perhaps more. It all depends on if wormholes are proven to be real, if we can manipulate them etc. Even if wormholes don't exist natural development in technology will allow us to travel large distances. The latest examples that spring to mind (I forget its exact name) is some kind of like 3rd generation ion drive that could take us to out nearest star in like 45-35 years, something like that I think it is. Looking at the more immediate future I know theres some kind of engine being worked on that can get spacecraft to Mars in 5 weeks. Thats a incredible leap forward of the current fastest spacecraft to go to Mars which took 6 months!
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Message 1224805 - Posted: 29 Apr 2012, 7:45:32 UTC

I find the Fermi paradox quite haunting


where are they?


Maybe they are only here, scientifically speaking this is all we have to go on.


What if our planet is it, the only planet with life or what we call life on it.


We are all guessing so many things when we postulate other civilisations.


We might be lucky to find a planet with bacteria with primitive ancestor of RNA, but that might be it.


There could be other scenarios as well, what if a life giving planet or other life giving planets existed in this part of the galaxy before... and we are products from that life giving planet...the left over bits of primitive bacteria.

The planet and solar system may have been primed by this earlier planet..or planets.

That could be grim for the possibility of life else where..this event had a whole lot more time to occur..making the odds that is even more difficult to produce life even greater.





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Profile William Rothamel
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Message 1224822 - Posted: 29 Apr 2012, 9:05:49 UTC - in response to Message 1201458.  

There is a paucity of stars out to 20 light years. Currently no engine that could take us there due to the mass of fuel required.
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Message 1227412 - Posted: 4 May 2012, 21:47:53 UTC

Given that certain things,unique things,have occured here,then the prospect for life elsewhere is not as high as i believe some like to think,other planets would have to have a magnetic field(so we didnt cook),perhaps a large moon as ours,(to hoover up the odd life threatening astroid etc),and somehow have just the right "goldilocks " conditions.What i dont dispute however,is there must be life elsewhere,..the mere fact WE are here proves its possible..in fact there must be...as i said,the fact we are here makes it more logical than ilogical...its happened once......
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Message boards : SETI@home Science : At Least 100 Billion Planets


 
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