CycleChat Ivestigates - Alien Life

[roubaixtuesday]

I don’t agree at all. This is by far the likeliest discovery. Planets with an atmosphere that is “likely” from organic life and very unlikely to occur naturally. This could be animal, vegetation etc. I suspect we will have telescopes capable of scanning large numbers of planets' atmospheres to find one.

Depends what you mean by "large numbers". It will be a tiny proportion of planets in a tiny proportion of our own galaxy which is a tiny proportion of the totality of galaxies!

 

[markemark]

Depends what you mean by "large numbers". It will be a tiny proportion of planets in a tiny proportion of our own galaxy which is a tiny proportion of the totality of galaxies!

I suspect we’ll be able to scan millions of planets at some point for signs of an organic atmosphere, concentrating on those in the Goldilocks zone. As technology develops further that number will only increase.

 

[FrankCrank]

I suppose a lack of evidence is not evidence of their lacking 👽

 

[Drago]

Or is the evidence being withheld from us...?

 

[roubaixtuesday]

I suspect we’ll be able to scan millions of planets at some point for signs of an organic atmosphere,

Very interesting. I'm not aware of any missions conceived with that capability. Got a liink?

Even if we did this, a negative wouldn't answer the question, as a million planets is only a millionth of the planets in one galaxy, with is on one hundred billionth of the total in the universe!

 

[Drago]

The technology already exists to analyse the atmosphere of many expoplanets.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The technology already exists to analyse the atmosphere of many expoplanets.

It's useful to be more specific I think: "analyse" and "many" covers a wide range of meaning!

 

[Oldhippy]

Absolutely yes, no question.

 

[markemark]

Very interesting. I'm not aware of any missions conceived with that capability. Got a liink?

Even if we did this, a negative wouldn't answer the question, as a million planets is only a millionth of the planets in one galaxy, with is on one hundred billionth of the total in the universe!

Indeed. It’s a number game. And impossible to know. But I would suggest that there will be millions of planets with vegetation for each with intelligent life. Now intelligent life will likely die out fairly quickly either but its own destruction, poisoning the planet or running out of resources. So that means it’s much much less common and for a vanish small amount of time meaning us detecting and contact virtually zero.
So given the theory of searching g for organic atmosphere is massively higher based on the much larger number and the longevity. Does that outweigh the limited range we can view? I think so.

Of course another scenario is intelligent life building structures around their star to harness enough power which they outgrew on their planet. We’re probably a few thousand years away on the current trajectory. That would be visible and this is also being searched for.

 

[Beebo]

Just so. It took us 300,000 years to reach our present state of ‘civilisation’. One inopportune meteor and a few millennia and no-one would know we had been here.

It would be longer than that.
I saw an estimate that in 100 million years it would be almost impossible to identify any evidence of human life.
But that is still a very short time line.
And in about 7.5 billion years earth will be wiped out.

 

[Profpointy]

Maybe we're looking for the wrong type of life, based on knowledge of life on earth. We're carbon based, but what's to say that all intelligent life is carbon based.

Whilst other mechanisms may not be wholly ruled out, carbon, for physics reasons is uniquely able to form an incredible variety of chemical compounds, hence far more likely to be a basis for life. The two big branches of chemistry are organic, being the chemistry of carbon, and inorganic, which covers all the rest. Biochemistry is more specific again.

 

[markemark]

Whilst other mechanisms may not be wholly ruled out, carbon, for physics reasons is uniquely able to form an incredible variety of chemical compounds, hence far more likely to be a basis for life. The two big branches of chemistry are organic, being the chemistry of carbon, and inorganic, which covers all the rest. Biochemistry is more specific again.

I imagine that silicon based life will surpass carbon based life in the future. There’s no way any advanced civilisation who can manage interstellar travel will use squishy fragile life when ai and robots will be superior in every way

 

[Profpointy]

I imagine that silicon based life will surpass carbon based life in the future. There’s no way any advanced civilisation who can manage interstellar travel will use squishy fragile life when ai and robots will be superior in every way

ah that is quite an interesting idea -electronic based rather than chemistry based life.

 

[markemark]

ah that is quite an interesting idea -electronic based rather than chemistry based life.

Created by intelligent life, it wouldn’t be created organically.

 

[Oldhippy]

Interstellar travel is always put forward as one argument for not being here. It is all based on our human limitations in thought and technologies. Inter-dimensional travel is also another view to take on board.