@spaceflight
I am agnostic. I think it possible that such life exists in this universe or beyond, but I have seen no evidence and therefore cannot 'believe'.
Interesting that you, with a scientific background (presumably) can believe in things about which you are not completely certain;
whereas I, an arts person with an interest in theology, am able to say that I 'believe' in God (although my standards of proof would not be acceptable to a non-theist) but not that I believe in life forms whose existence is, as far as I know, based not on evidence but on surmise. 😋
@spaceflight
I was told as a child that the moon is made of blue cheese. I was young enough to 'believe' this, given that the source was my father (previously thought reliable) and it seemed to something that could not be disproved, therefore might well be true.
In the 1960s and 70's, I was both a Trekkie and a Whovian, read science fiction etc so 'aliens' seemed very real to me. But I wouldn't say I believed in them.
However, having seen the OED definition, I realise I may be in a minority!
@spaceflight
It's 1.15 in the morning here - although I am regrettably sober, I think my arguments are less cogent than they might be after breakfast, for which I apologise :ablobcatmeltwave_rev:
@spaceflight Obviously with a sample size of one we can at best make educated vibe checks, but given that we know basic life started pretty early on Earth, and that we have already observed similar exoplanets to earth, then apply that to the scale of the Milky Way Galaxy and it feels like there should be another intelligence out there. I highly doubt there is an interstellar-capable civilization chilling in the solar system, we prolly would have noticed by now lol
There's no option if you don't believe ANY exist. And define "beyond" the universe. Arguably, the universe goes on forever, therefore there would be no "beyond".
@spaceflight I mean, all of the above? There's almost 8 billion individuals of a species right here on this planet that has successfully sent spacecraft outside the solar system. Some of them are even intelligent 😉
@spaceflight@tony Like to think if you travelled through the far reaches of space to edge of Universe beyond that is an infinite void that is continually expanding and also transmuting into another dimension. Benevolent exceptionally intelligent advanced life forms exist there who are masters in universal and inter-dimensional travel with God like abilities.
@spaceflight Thank you for the video illustrating perspective l believe there are beings out there both in the universe and beyond. There is so much we don’t know about dark matter, plasma and neutrinos and it is an exciting time for new discoveries. I guess speculation on what is out there is much like pre Christopher Columbus finding America or Galileo discovering the Solar System who’s work impacted religious beliefs at the time.
• Within 326 light-years of the #sun there are statistically 11,000 #Earth-size #planets 🪐 in the habitable zone of K-type (sun-like) stars.
• The #SolarSystem is younger than 77% of close #star systems with rocky #exoplanets.
• Rocky exoplanets outnumbered giant Jupiter-like exoplanets when the #universe 🌌 was young.
• Statistically, the closest life-harboring Earth-like #planet is 65 light-years 📏 distant.
> This last claim depends on #microbial life 🦠 arising as soon as it did on Earth
That's a lot of stew from one oyster.
We just have no idea how common life is. It might appear on any reasonably habitable planet, it might be incredibly rare. With only one sample, we literally have no way to even make a good guess.
#Nasa's #JWST has its limits. #Earth's size and proximity to the #Sun ☀️ enable it to support life. But JWST wouldn't be able to detect faraway #planets 🪐 as small as Earth or as close to their parent #stars, because of the glare.
Nasa is planning the Habitable Worlds Observatory (#HWO), scheduled for the 📆 2030s.
🇨🇱 #Chile experiences on average two #earthquakes above a magnitude of 1.5 every 24 hours, with a total of 677 in the past year.
One specific challenge is posed by the gaps between the 798 segments that make up the primary mirror 📡. For observing reasons, these gaps must be as small as possible — but the mirrors must still be separated, as any contact between them during an earthquake would be devastating.
In case of an #earthquake, the telescope 🔭 and the dome foundation can slide horizontally on isolators by as much as 30 centimetres 📏 to compensate for the ground movements, minimising shocks to the telescope. https://www.eso.org/public/blog/protecting-elt-from-earthquakes/
The Big Numbers argument notes that our #galaxy, the #MilkyWay 🌌, has something like 400 billion #stars 🎇, and it’s just one of untold billions of galaxies in a #universe that might be infinite. Moreover, in the past 30 years, astronomers have discovered that #planets 🪐 of all shapes and sizes are common in the universe.
With so much turf out there, even the most frowny-faced skeptic must admit it’s hard to run the numbers 📊 in a 13.8 billion-year-old universe like ours and wind up with just one self-aware, technological, #telescope 🔭-constructing species.
The universe is not about us, and what happened on this planet over the past 4 billion years could happen elsewhere.
@spaceflight I don't know about 'contact within 200 years' but I'm willing to bet proof of something alien far off in Space will be discovered in 200 years, our telescopes are getting so good. #SETI
@Lazarou yeah, way better than the stone tools we recently used to use 😜 (or people we used to burn if they said Earth isn't the middle of the Universe)
@spaceflight but if you stand on the edge of a jungle shouting ‘hello’ the animals don’t come running towards you, do they? They probably look and think weirdo!
📆 1950 the question "Where is everybody ?" occurred to #Fermi at lunch 🍽️ one day.
• The #MilkyWay 🌌 contains hundreds of billions of stars 🎇, and billions of them are similar to the #sun ☀️.
• It is highly likely that some of these stars will have planets 🪐 that are similar to #Earth 🌏.
• If we assume – via the #Copernican principle – that Earth is not particularly special, then #intelligent life should also exist on some fraction of these Earth-like #planets.
• Some of these intelligent life-forms might develop advanced technology, and even #InterstellarTravel.
• #Interstellar travel would take a long time, but as there are many sun-like #stars that are billions of years older, there has been plenty of time ⌛ for such #travel to have occurred.
• Given all this, why haven’t we met or seen 🔭 any trace of #aliens 👽 ? https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/exploration/what-is-the-fermi-paradox/
The #evolution of #intelligent life on a #planet 🪐 requires not only that planetary conditions are conducive to life at the start, as it first evolves, but also that the planet remains #habitable 🌡️💧 subsequently, without interruption. This is because there has to be enough time to allow life to increase in #complexity from simple cells to more sophisticated single cells to multicellular life and eventually to #intelligent life. #Solar ☀️ heating of today’s #Earth 🌍 is about 30% more intense 📈 than of the early Earth https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00057-8
#Guardian 📆 Tue 4 Jul 2023 If successful, #BreakthroughStarshot could get to #AlphaCentauri 🪐 not in 76,000 years but in just 20. It would revolutionise our understanding of the #universe 🌌 by enabling closeup observations of #exoplanets and their atmospheres, and potentially even detecting signs of life.
@spaceflight To me, such a chart contains still a fair bit of cherrypicking to keep the pre-industrial history dark.
The modern TikToking teenager might regard the latest technology trends of 923 a bit different or useless, but for the people who lived back than, the innovation cycles had been only been slightly slower than we experience them.
I can really feel how primitive the people will perceive us in the year 3000 😁
@urwumpe the innovation cycles will be faster as the communication is way easier. And already the generation after the next will percieve us primitive (I grew up without internet or mobile phone, for instance 😱)
@spaceflight exactly. My daughter can't really grasp that she was born just four years after the first iPhone.
And that is likely no difference for previous or future generations. I was born right at the time, the first self service gas station were introduced in western Germany. (And reacted pretty confused when Shell returned the attendant as Option).
#Reuters 📆 May 31, 2023 #SETI : The #scientists in the various monitoring efforts passively #scan 📡 for signals of #alien 👽 beings and do not actively #send their own signals advertising our presence on #Earth.
@sternwarte well there are way cuter life forms, but also possibly those https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raptor_scale.jpghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theraphosa_blondi_1.jpg
@spaceflight oh i love all animals (except bloodsucking types 😂 ) my dearest dinosaurs are the birds 🥰
this spider is cute, but the Velociraptor is much cuter ❤️ in fact, i think he would like human flesh 😎
@spaceflight a second arm is hugely valuable, a third not so much. Two legs have balance issues that can be solved in software, three or even four doesn't help much, you need to get to six which is energetically expensive. Sticking the sensor cluster up high is more useful than not. So two legs, two manipulators, and a head is a darn good body plan for a sapient.
@spaceflight true. But as I understood the question, the goal is "sapience". If you define that to include sophisticated tool use and environmental manipulation (I do), then the kinda humanoid plan is hard to beat. The emphasis is on "kinda".
@SkipHuffman the question is meant as "think about that", similar to the whole page/account. "Sapience" (as of wikipedia) is defined as "knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight". The problem with SETI is the lack of knowledge & insight. So we only rely on experience & common sense, which makes it difficult to predict what might appear
👽 Most seem to prefer the 👾 insects / octopuses assumption, some impressions how this might look 👀 like https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eye_Arrangement_of_a_Hogna_Wolf_Spider.pnghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anterior_Median_and_Anterior_Lateral_Eyes_of_a_Phidippus_princeps_Jumping_Spider.jpghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adult_male_Paraphidippus_aurantius_Jumping_Spider.jpghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mystaceus_eyes.jpg
@spaceflight part the answer to the #Fermi#paradox the other part is most intelligent species don’t make it past type 1 Kardashev scale ( EX : humans aren’t even managing #ClimateChange a basic level test )
📆 5 Jul 2023 Fossil data record the number of days 📆 per year or, equivalently, the number of hours ⌚ per day. Interactions with the #Moon 🌙 and with the other #planets 🪐 drive changes. #Lunar tides have been active since at least 3.2 billion years ago. There were about 27 #Solar days per synodic month around 3000 Ma https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add2499
@spaceflight The other problem is that most of the galaxy, as measured by density, is unsuitable for development of the kind of life we understand. Too many stars too close together means you get a supernova in the neighborhood with life-extinguishing effects too frequently for anything resembling DNA-based life to get very far before the reset button is pushed, again and again.
@failedLyndonLaRouchite@spaceflight We don't know it didn't. there could have been many intelligent species; there's no reason to expect they'd leave a recognizable and accessible trace over those kinds of timeframes. Even Precolumbian-grade stone structures would be scattered and buried rubble by now.
I don't think it is correct to say no traces would be left
after all, sterols can be found in 500 million year old rocks, so I think if these putative intelligent creatures existed at near our level, plastic (esp teflon) or Titanium or other things would be still intact sort of
no evidence in fossil record of large brain organisms; if they were present in large numbers we would expect to see that
and some ore deposits - eg the Mesabi - have been around for a long time
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