Aliens

Watched that solar system show with Brian Cox one night on the Beeb.

There was a bit when he took a photo of the night sky and of a distant star. This was on a standard camera we all own.

He said the light from it that we are seeing right now, left the star when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, despite travelling at that speed!

Now that makes you feel small. Real small.

'Whether we are alone in the Universe or we are not,either thought is frightening' - Arthur C Clarke.

Kaiser wrote:

The other thing is, the distances between solar systems is so massive that if there is intelligent life out there, we may never, ever meet. A sobering thought

A lifeform with the technology to reach us would have to be so very far ahead of us in their technological advancement that we'd probably be of little interest to them anyway. And realistically we won't be flying around in the Starship Enterprise anytime soon, if ever.

Rhys Essien wrote: »

'Whether we are alone in the Universe or we are not,either thought is frightening' - Arthur C Clarke.

Thats a great quote.

Still a hateful paedo though.

In the absence of evidence, believing that alien life forms exist is tantamount to a religion.

It's possible, but right now we can't say one way or another.

"I see a teapot. The universe is so large that, out there somewhere, there must be another teapot!"

Great piece on Dara O'Briains science show last night about the steps needed to get to interstellar travel capability. A science dude drew up a massive flow chart in 1987 about the numerous steps of invention needed to progress us to extra system travel before the year 2100, his projections are already 40 years behind! And some other science dude said the reason for that delay was the space race was only to put two-fingers up to the Russians, not to progress anything that man actually needs. Sure, there is a thirst for knowledge but we have absolutely no requirement to leave our earthly armchair for anything at all, so throwing 1 trillion dollars down the pan for it is just silly. It will take the Chinese getting all up and noisy about space to even begin to progress manned space exploration any further

As regards the chances of sentient life on other planets, or even flora and fauna, as at last count there are 1,500,000 galaxies in the observable universe, each with more than 5,000,000 stars and we only know of 700 star systems with planets in them because they are our near neighbours, you would be more statisically correct to state that 'there is life on other planets' than 'there is not life on other planets', we just will never know it, and the aliens, wherever they are, will probably never know it either


"The chances of anything coming from Mars were a million to one, yet, still they come"

Larbre34 wrote: »

Sure, there is a thirst for knowledge but we have absolutely no requirement to leave our earthly armchair for anything at all, so throwing 1 trillion dollars down the pan for it is just silly.

It's not silly, there's a finite amount of resources on earth that we are running out of. We desperately need to get into space before the option to leave is taken off the table.

The universe is amazing , when you look at that picture and think of all the possibilties. There is no way we are the only intelligent life out there , we are only a small dot on a massive plain, we may not even be that important on the grand scheme of things we just like to think we are.

There could be one , two , 200 forms of intelligent life out there accross the Galaxys , some could exist in the same galaxy and could be at peace , war with each other who knows. The galaxy hast been around an awful long time and we are still in nappys barely able to reach out and touch our closest neighbouring planets.

I will say this though , for all the talk of miracles and how perfect we function as a species and by that I don't mean we are perfect we are clearly flawed but in our evolution and the what we have become through time we really have grown.

It's almost too perfect isn't it? The sun is exactly the right distance away to keep us alive but not ingulf us, the moon pulls and sways our massive oceans , the rain provides water , the plants provide food , we are driven to reproduce , our teeth are perfect for what we eat , our body hair keeps us warm , our hands , our fingers , our legs , our emotions , our morals I could go on but think about it...it's almost so much of a coincidence that it may not be a coincidence at all maybe we help along the way and just never knew about it.

For all we know we could be a children species of another that is well past us in evolution and has been around 10 times as long. In the grand scheme of things we know nothing.

I reckon there is life out there, and short of us finding it (which is highly unlikely, given snail pace space program), it will find us. In that case, its' technology will far surpass ours and we'd all be enslaved or killed.

Is it out there? Yes.
Do i want it to find us? Hell no.