Are we alone in the universe? Is there anybody out there?

Question

It is perhaps the holy grail of planetary science and one of mankind's greatest mysteries, are we alone in this vast universe?

Do you think intelligent life exists(here :P) beyond earth? Is it rare or do you think the universe is teeming with all sorts of different life forms? If so what do you think E.T will look like? Similar to us? Or nothing like we've ever imagined before. Cultural and social construct? Anything like ours or so different that we will not be able to recognize it. I also wonder in terms of extra terrestrials if they would have music or something similar to it. But probably the most important question is..., will we ever contact them? What impact would it have on you mentally/emotionally/religiously if such a discovery was made in your lifetime? Or... do you think we are the 'only ones' here and this is all a bunch of hoop-a-la.

I know it's so many to answer at once but i would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions to any or all of the above questions on this fascinating subject.

Thanks!

Answer 1

  We are not alone.

  Aliens proliferate through out the universe.

  They also wonder about us.

Answer 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJirnJSwq...

Answer 3

I suppose my guess is as good as the next. And I would think that is highly unlikely that we are the only intelligent life in existence. The Universe is kind of a big place. Just from looking at our solar system, I would say it's rare sense most of our planets (appear to be) very inhospitable for intelligent life. I also doubt that we will ever meet them unless there is life after death. LOL.

Answer 4

Living thing like in the smallest order like bacteria proly does and if it did it would be extremophiles that can withstand simply weird abnormal conditions. O yes we have that here too. But living thing like plants or animals in the universe even in the smallest form .... i think not. But proly even higher order than us in the galaxy.  

Answer 5

Take a look at the wotk Margaet Turnbull and Jill Tarter are doing with exoplanets.  Maybe in 5 or 10 years we will have some new info.

Answer 6

Of course I think they’re real! How is it possible that we on earth are the only things living in the huge, vast universe? The universe is so big, that scientists can’t even map it. I think it’s crazy to think that we are the only beings here. They say that life would be unsustainable on planets without oxygen, well, what if those aliens thrived on natural gas, or methane? Who knows? We don’t believe people who say they’ve seen aliens, but yet we ask if they are out there.

Answer 7

Like I said yesterday regarding ET civilizations and visitation=

"If they look nothing like us in any way due to there having to be tremendous differences in evolutionary lines and make themselves known in like 50 to 100 years from now- then MAYBE - perhaps they are true aliens.

But if they resemble our image in any way: have 2 legs, 2 arms, 2 eyes, nose, mouth, and visit us any time co-incidentally between now and 2012 then something strange is afoot at the Circle K, my friend. The Fallen and the antichrist have made their move and probably just using the LHC to say it somehow ripped spacetime and made a stargate or some similar c**p."

Answer 8

With billions of stars in each of billions of galaxies, I can't believe that some sort of life hasn't evolved someplace.  The problem with contact is timing.  If we're optimistic and say that there's a 50,000 year window between the time we become technologically advanced enough to contact someone else, and either we die out or some other catastrophe occurs such that we can't contact anyone any more, that represents a tiny fraction of the billion or so years since the earth's crust cooled.

We have to hope that someone else close enough to us evolves at the right time to make contact within that time window.

As for time travel, I like what Stephen Hawking says about it: Macroscopic time travel is probably impossible, for the simple reason that we have no evidence that anyone has ever come back from the future to see us.

Answer 9

The best and only reasonable solution to the Fermi Paradox is that we are the ONLY show in the town: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_parad...

Answer 10

Microbial life is probably very common, but intelligent life is probably very rare IMO. I came up with a hypothesis... maybe intelligent species die out before immortalizing their civilization in the cosmos through colonization of other worlds. I believe once an alien society reaches a point somewhere around where we are they either blow themselves up or they consume every natural resource until their society collapses, they technologically digress, and finally die out because of some cataclysm. Look at mankind just this last century... more specifically the Cuban Missile crisis. We came within inches of putting ourselves in the stone ages. It is likely such situations happen all the time in the grand scheme of things, but other civilizations might not be so likely. Even today new tensions are growing as more and more countries gain nuclear weaponry. The US and former Soviet Union might no longer be at odds, but look at India and Pakistan. Or soon to be Iran vs Israel.

Even if we ignore nuclear holocaust we are still heading to a far greater disaster... overconsumption. We cannot sustain the lifestyles we live today forever. Sooner or later (I'm guessing sooner) fossil fuels will run out and our society will collapse. There is a slim chance efficient renewable energies will be developed in time, but like I said... other civilizations might not be so lucky. Maybe they will run out of oil quicker than us and fade away because they didn't have that much to begin with or maybe they have a lot more than us but poisoned their planet burning it all. Its a slippery slope sentients tred.

I'm sure they have a lot of the hoop-a-la we do. So long as they are not hive minded and are individuals willing to sacrifice things for what they feel is right their will be conflict on their world like ours.

Answer 11

I think that we are not alone but that the aliens would be a primitive form of life like bacteria. As for intelligent life out there, it would be extremely rare and that humans existence will probably never make contact with them.

Answer 12

yes  there must be intelligent life out there but that's why they won't call us there smarter then we are  

Answer 13

Just responding to the first two questions:

You need to define a few terms...

Who is "we"?

Humans? The royal "we"? All life on Earth?

What is the universe?

What you can see? What can be detected? What is theoretically possible?

What is "anybody"?

Does microbial life count? Do the beings need to be intelligent? Do they need to be carbon-based life forms?

Where is "there"?

Is it anywhere in the universe? Maybe it is only the places we can travel to?

Second, you need to carefully consider if this is the right forum to discuss such questions.

If you want a numerical answer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equat...

Answer 14

I suggest you read a book "Rare Earth" by Ward and Brownlee.  If the task of reading a book is too difficult, Wikipedia has a summary of their hypothesis under the heading "Rare Earth Hypothesis".  Basically they contend that simple life is very common.  Animal life is exceedingly rare, and intelligence far rarer still.  

The truth is that we will never know.  Interstellar distances are vast beyond understanding.  No technology will ever bridge those gulfs.  No aliens ships will ever see our skies.  No earth ships will ever see alien worlds.  The distances are just too great.  

SETI is the only chance to contact an alien civilization by detecting their radio transmissions.  In 50 years it hasn't found any intelligent signals.  But they keep trying.  It is the ONLY CHANCE of contact.  

If we achieved contact I would think "gee, thats nice".  I'd watch the talking heads on TV making half-witted comments.  But there would be no chance of intelligent discussion between civilizations in my lifetime.  Interstellar communications would be SLOW.  Decades or centuries between transmissions.  It is also very likely that we could never decipher an alien language.  

Answer 15

I would answer in just a few words: The universe is too big for just humans