The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

[dickey1331]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Oh okay. I still don't think that's true though. 40 billion potential Earth like planets in our own galaxy, and we are a small galaxy to boot. Multiply that by billions upon billions of galaxies. I just can't see how we are the only ones.

I think it was the great filter that seems to fall into the Fermi Paradox.

The problem with getting to where we are currently at is too many things that have to go right. A little more oxygen and we all die. A little hotter or colder and we all die. It's very possible we are the one in a billion chance of getting to this point.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I think it was the great filter that seems to fall into the Fermi Paradox.

The problem with getting to where we are currently at is too many things that have to go right. A little more oxygen and we all die. A little hotter or colder and we all die. It's very possible we are the one in a billion chance of getting to this point.

I agree everything has to go right, but the sheer amount of planets that exist that are in their stars habitable zone are astronomical. Plus who is to say that life on another planet has to breathe the same ratio of oxygen that we do? They my sustain themselves totally different. It's like things we have discovered deep in the oceans that have no right being able to survive in those conditions. Yet they defy everything we know and do.

One in a billion doesn't even come close to the odds either. It's more like one in the multiple sextillion range. I think that's a 1 and 27 0's.

But like we talked about before, who the hell knows lol.

[dickey1331]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I agree everything has to go right, but the sheer amount of planets that exist that are in their stars habitable zone are astronomical. Plus who is to say that life on another planet has to breathe the same ratio of oxygen that we do? They my sustain themselves totally different. It's like things we have discovered deep in the oceans that have no right being able to survive in those conditions. Yet they defy everything we know.



One in a billion doesn't even come close to the odds either. It's more like one in the multiple sextillion range. I think that's a 1 and 27 0's.



But like we talked about before, who the hell knows lol.

Haha yeah I just said billion as I didn't want to look up the number.

You're right by the sheer numbers there has to be some sort of intelligent life out there.

I agree with many of the theory's out there. Many of them makes sense and I certainly don't know which one is correct.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Also something to keep in mind, the radio signals that have been broadcast from Earth have only traveled about 300 light years in diameter. That's a pretty small space in our galaxy. And radio waves travel at the speed of light. Just goes to show that even the speed of light is relatively slow in the grand scheme of the universe.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-sees-monstrous-cloud-boomerang-back-to-our-galaxy

This is awesome! More stars could lead to more planets and more chance for life in our galaxy in the future.

[Jr.]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Related to the "are we alone" discussion, the CIA released some previously confidential documents related to UFOs. Nothing groundbreaking, but interesting nonetheless.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Related to the "are we alone" discussion, the CIA released some previously confidential documents related to UFOs. Nothing groundbreaking, but interesting nonetheless.

I saw that! They even dubbed them The X-Files.

[Jr.]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I think it was the great filter that seems to fall into the Fermi Paradox.

The problem with getting to where we are currently at is too many things that have to go right. A little more oxygen and we all die. A little hotter or colder and we all die. It's very possible we are the one in a billion chance of getting to this point.

Here's a good article about the Fermi Paradox: http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

[Majingir]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I agree everything has to go right, but the sheer amount of planets that exist that are in their stars habitable zone are astronomical. Plus who is to say that life on another planet has to breathe the same ratio of oxygen that we do? They my sustain themselves totally different. It's like things we have discovered deep in the oceans that have no right being able to survive in those conditions. Yet they defy everything we know and do.

That's what i always thought too. Why exactly do other lifeforms have to have same living environment as us in order to survive? Just cause a planet doesn't have water and/or oxygen, doesn't mean nothing could live on it. It just means nothing Earth related could survive.

It took hundreds of millions of years for species on earth to go from basically nothing, into creatures that could swim,fly,walk on land, ect. Who's to say on some other planet, same didn't happen. Give some far away planet hundreds of millions of years to have things adapt and evolve into something and it probably will.

And the whole radio signals,music and so on they send in space, how does that help? Even if aliens got it, it'd mean nothing. They dont speak english,french,spanish ect. They were all earth created languages. People here can barely understand diff languages,despite most words being translatable. Same with ancient egyptian writing. People spend lifetimes trying to figure it out.

Just seems like most alien thinking is just assuming there's other oxygen breathing,water drinking,electronic device using species out there.

[dickey1331]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

That's what i always thought too. Why exactly do other lifeforms have to have same living environment as us in order to survive? Just cause a planet doesn't have water and/or oxygen, doesn't mean nothing could live on it. It just means nothing Earth related could survive.

It took hundreds of millions of years for species on earth to go from basically nothing, into creatures that could swim,fly,walk on land, ect. Who's to say on some other planet, same didn't happen. Give some far away planet hundreds of millions of years to have things adapt and evolve into something and it probably will.

And the whole radio signals,music and so on they send in space, how does that help? Even if aliens got it, it'd mean nothing. They dont speak english,french,spanish ect. They were all earth created languages. People here can barely understand diff languages,despite most words being translatable. Same with ancient egyptian writing. People spend lifetimes trying to figure it out.

Just seems like most alien thinking is just assuming there's other oxygen breathing,water drinking,electronic device using species out there.

Because every living thing known has to have liquid water. Without liquid water you have no life. I would bet anything you won't find life especially intelligent life without water.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

So about aliens...lol I take my dog outside earlier tonight and I look off to the east over some trees and I see a light in the sky flashing bright red every couple seconds. I think nothing of it at first, I just pass it off as a plane. I'm watching my dog do his thing and then a minute or two later I look back up and catch the light again...In the same exact place! I'm like WTF man. So I continue to look at it and it just sits there flashing red on and off. I take my dog in and go back about about 10 minutes later and its still there! Hasn't moved an inch. It's cold as hell out so I go back in for like 20 minutes then come back out to check it and its gone.

Now I'm not saying its aliens, but.....

Spoiler

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Because every living thing known has to have liquid water. Without liquid water you have no life. I would bet anything you won't find life especially intelligent life without water.

For organic carbon based lifeforms this is true. But there is some scientific speculation that life may be able to survive on cryogenic hydrocarbons. This could be the case on some of Jupiter and Saturn's moons such as Titan, Europa, and Enceladus.

[BurghFan]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

It is entirely possible that life may not require oxygen on other planets or that extraterrestrial life may not be carbon-based. Even on Earth, the earliest lifeforms lived in an anoxic environment under an atmosphere much different than our current one and when the first photosynthesizers appeared and began producing oxygen, it was actually toxic to other lifeforms. You don't even have to leave the Earth to find hints at non-carbon-based life as there was a paper published a couple years ago about the discovery of a species of bacteria that substituted arsenic for phosphorus (there's even a thread about the announcement in the E&T section). Silicon-based life is the most widely speculated variant form of life as it is chemically similar to carbon which it lies directly under on the periodic table. Scientists have even speculated on the possibility of ammonia-based life in the hydrocarbon lakes of Staturn's moon Titan.

Even if we couldn't understand the content of a radio signal picked up from an extraterrestrial civilization, it would still be possible to determine that it was sent by an extraterrestrial civilization by analyzing its characteristics and comparing with known natural sources of radio signals. It would also be possible to transmit a sort of instruction manual for translating the content by using mathematics and different universal laws.

Yeah, I was working on and thinking over that post for about 20 minutes before submitting it.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

Anyone remember the "WOW" signal? It was picked up at Ohio State on a radio telescope in 1977 I believe. It was thought at first it was an interstellar signal. It was explained away by a few different theories such as a reflection of space debris and a comet. Definitely interesting though.

[slickdtc]

Re: The Astronomy and Physics thread. And things of the like.

I also think that we apply human life laws to things that aren't human. Just another example of us thinking the world (and beyond!) revolves around us.

Aliens? I don't even know. I'll leave the door open for any possibility. So much happens that we can't explain on Earth as it is.

A physics thing I read a couple months back was that the law of motion was broken. It was to a the tiniest degree, but an object or something provided itself with thrust without anything else acting on it. Something along those lines.

Like I said, I'm pretty open to literally anything possible happening defying all we know or can explain. I mean, we got here on a once in forever chance... I think it's our supposed intelligence that limits our scope of thought or theory. And our inherent self-centeredness.

What an excellent topic!