Do you think that if our planet was in a galaxy instead of a solar system we'd have found life by now?

Question

Do you think that if our planet was in a galaxy instead of a solar system we'd have found life by now?

Answer 1

Galaxy: A collection or cluster of solar systems.

Solar system: One or more planets orbiting around a star within a galaxy.

Answer 2

What, it is in a Galaxy? Trees (solar system) and forest (galaxy).

Answer 3

Yes, if our planet was randomly floating around in a galaxy, hurtling through space like an asteroid we might have found some life along our journey

Answer 4

We are in a galaxy dummy.The solar system is a small part of the galaxy,the milky way.

Answer 5

What does the dynamics of our solar system and galaxy have to do with our ability to detect life?

Answer 6

Yes. If only we lived in a galaxy. Mind you, my uncle used to live in France. I should ask him if he saw any aliens there.

Answer 7

Hi Esper!

Finding life beyond earth, if such life exists, is enormously difficult.  That's why, if it exists, we have not found it, and we may never find it.  

The first problem is the colossal distances.  We've barely reached Mars after 4 1/2 billion years of earth history.  The nearest star lies a half-million times further away, and right now this is utterly beyond our technology.  The cost of the fuel to do it would be stupendous.  Economics alone may keep us, and any other creatures in the universe, from paying it.

Even if we could build a space vessel and find the fuel, the hurdle of time seems insurmountable in a human life span.  At any speed shy of the speed of light, a return trip to the closest star, Alpha Centauri, would take so long that everyone involved would be dead by the time the probe arrived.

Some want to spend money searching the skies for radio signals from alien creatures.  Following the teachings of astronomer Carl Sagan, they think that because humans broadcast, other planets do too.  The Saganists failed to anticipate the internet, however, which eliminates the need for radio broadcasting.  If there are advanced technical civilizations, they may not transmit signals that we can detect.

A more profound question is about whether such alien life exists at all.  Scientists and philosophers are divided.  Some believe that since life developed on earth, and since earth does not seem extraordinary, then life must be common, perhaps even a routine occurance.

Others, like me, see the appearance of life as a highly unusual chain of remarkable coincidences.  It seems unlikely that a working genetic code, for example, could easily arise somewhere else.  Even if it somehow did, it seems that intelligence and consciousness of the human order require an even more improbable set of coincidences.  It took earth 4 1/2 billion years for it to happen just once, and the universe is not more than 15 billion years old.  Who knows whether it has ever happened anywhere else.

Answer 8

Our planet is in a Galaxy. What exactly are you trying to ask here?