Aliens probably long dead, say scientists

[krtek a houby]

Extra-terrestrials ‘likely to have existed’ but gone extinct

This annoys me. The universe is big, really, really big. Surely the idea that we are alone in it strikes this poster as vanity...

 

[8ball]

Everybody's dead, Dave.

 

[krtek a houby]

 

[DotCommunist]

its another contributing thought to the fermi paradox. It makes some assumptions about what form life might take. but the universe is old and massive, even in geological terms our presence in the world is the merest hint of a blink compared to all those years and AU's. Its not to say it doesn't exist (ETs) but that none has got past the bottleneck suggested by people seeking to answer the fermi paradox

 

[BandWagon]

We may not be alone, but if life is that rare then it's going to be a long way away.

 

[Sea Star]

Let's face it - we have no fecking clue. It's barely educated guess work. We extrapolate all this from one planet and one species, and the idea that this tells us anything about all the other possible species and worlds that may exist is absurd.

 

[krtek a houby]

its another contributing thought to the fermi paradox. It makes some assumptions about what form life might take. but the universe is old and massive, even in geological terms our presence in the world is the merest hint of a blink compared to all those years and AU's. Its not to say it doesn't exist (ETs) but that none has got past the bottleneck suggested by people seeking to answer the fermi paradox

There has to be life other than this planet. It may be non humanoid (like a sentient gas) or it might be so beyond our imagination (something truly alien) but I just can't believe we're alone.

 

[2hats]

When we shortly finish our own experiment, we will at least have one datapoint as regards civilisation durability.

 

[8ball]

When we shortly finish our own experiment, we will at least have one datapoint as regards civilisation durability.

Well, *someone* will have a data point.

Possibly.

 

[DotCommunist]

the best we can hope for is that a friendly, long dead/sublimed species left us some gear on mars. Like a big black obelisk or something cool.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Given there are only around 500 stars within 100 light years of us, not much "noise" we've made in the form of telly and radio has got that far, yet, and I'm not sure how long we've been able to point stuff at the sky to potentially pick up similar from elsewhere but the universe is is fucking huge that it could be teeming with life and we just haven't had time to hear it yet, especially given we'd have to point stuff at exactly the right bit of sky coinciding with perhaps a very small timeframe to find owt.

 

[DotCommunist]

Given there are only around 500 stars within 100 light years of us, not much "noise" we've made in the form of telly and radio has got that far, yet, and I'm not sure how long we've been able to point stuff at the sky to potentially pick up similar from elsewhere but the universe is is fucking huge that it could be teeming with life and we just haven't had time to hear it yet, especially given we'd have to point stuff at exactly the right bit of sky coinciding with perhaps a very small timeframe to find owt.

with the orbital telescopes when they peer deep they are peering through time to the early days of the universe. No signals, long defunct ones or otherwise. Nothing that we can see. There is that weird star that looks like its been tampered with but thats probably not a half finished dyson sphere either. Thing about life is recognizing it as well. If there were some sentient creatures living in jupiters innards we'd never know. How would they get a signal out, how would we recognize it and anything we send into the planet gets crushed by gravity, ripped apart by insane storms and bathed in hard radiation. How do you even begin to recognize life that has evolved under those conditions, if it ever could

 

[EastEnder]

Extra-terrestrials ‘likely to have existed’ but gone extinct

This annoys me. The universe is big, really, really big. Surely the idea that we are alone in it strikes this poster as vanity...

What they're saying is fine, perfectly plausible. It doesn't mean for an instant that there is no life out there, they're just saying that most life is probably extinct due to all the many things that can potentially sterilise a planet. This is not the same as saying that life is nowhere else to be found, it's just suggesting that if you visited X many planets that have or had the potential to support life, a large proportion of them may have only the fossilised remains of long dead life on them. None of that precludes the possibility that we've simply not observed evidence of ET life yet - it's a big universe (so I'm told), it would be a bit daft to lose hope just cos the tiny fraction of planets we've analysed appear dead.

I think this is one of those articles that's great clickbait for newspapers, but really only of passing interest in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Steel Icarus]

with the orbital telescopes when they peer deep they are peering through time to the early days of the universe. No signals, long defunct ones or otherwise. Nothing that we can see. There is that weird star that looks like its been tampered with but thats probably not a half finished dyson sphere either. Thing about life is recognizing it as well. If there were some sentient creatures living in jupiters innards we'd never know. How would they get a signal out, how would we recognize it and anything we send into the planet gets crushed by gravity, ripped apart by insane storms and bathed in hard radiation. How do you even begin to recognize life that has evolved under those conditions, if it ever could

Yeah, I get that, and even if there is life on other planets there's no reason at all to assume they might have sent any "sign" - intentional or otherwise - outward. And when you think of how close you'd have to get to earth to see life signs it would be so easy to never know. There's a whole ace long bit about this in Pale Blue Dot which I'm sure you've read...?

 

[ricbake]

The space inbetween everything is so vast the chance of any two "civilisations" ever being able to commuicate with each other is infinitesimally remote.

 

[DotCommunist]

Yeah, I get that, and even if there is life on other planets there's no reason at all to assume they might have sent any "sign" - intentional or otherwise - outward. And when you think of how close you'd have to get to earth to see life signs it would be so easy to never know. There's a whole ace long bit about this in Pale Blue Dot which I'm sure you've read...?

aye. the vastness etc is why a favourite daydream of mine is to imagine all the ways a generation starship could go horribly wrong.

there's been lots of talk recently about active signalling rather than passive listening and lots of science-based worryworts making the valid point 'maybe theres a reason its so quiet out there. Maybe shouting brings a bad attention' which is lol but a concept milked for all its worth by that alistair reynolds

 

[ricbake]

If we put some people in a spaceship that could support them indefinitely and sent them off into the ether there is a slim possibility sometime after a few tens of thousands of generations, if the inbreeding didn't wipe them out, they might come across something sentient they could tell their story to......

 

[twentythreedom]

Not dead, just waiting

 

[xes]

and that weird thing Pepsi did on it...

 

[EastEnder]

The space inbetween everything is so vast the chance of any two "civilisations" ever being able to commuicate with each other is infinitesimally remote.

Depends on how you define "communicate". Certainly two way communication is going to be a tad tricky... However, I think there's every reason to keep looking for signals, if for no other reason than we might find an advanced, philanthropic (or whatever aliens would call it) species out there that's kind enough to shed a bit of light on our own history.

Imagine this: You're a super advanced alien species, you've got solar system spanning telescopes that can make out details on planets that are millions of light years away, you search for ages but cannot find anything more than evidence for the simplest microbial life. As an act of interstellar kindness, you decide to start broadcasting your observations of those planets with simple life, back to the planets themselves. The theory being that, whilst your signals might take many millions of years to arrive, it's remotely possible that eventually the life on one of those planets might evolve to the point that it's sentient & develops the technology neccessary to receive those signals.

What a nice present that would be...

 

[kittyP]

Not dead, just waiting

His west country accent makes it even better

 

[twentythreedom]

Plus there's that death star planet killer thing being built out there somewhere

 

[EastEnder]

Plus there's that death star planet killer thing being built out there somewhere

Bit of a waste of money really. It'd be vastly cheaper to just stick some massive rockets on a huge asteroid, or de-orbit a convenient nearby moon, and send them hurtling into the doomed planet. If the evil emperor had thought of that he could've got rid of Alderaan & the annoying ewoks without firing a shot.

 

[Signal 11]

"probably long dead" -- or not got started yet.

 

[bi0boy]

It could be argued that planets orbiting dwarf stars are more hospitable to life, and that as the universe ages it will contain lots more of these so life will become widespread as the universe ages.

 

[Pickman's model]

or aliens know very well we're here but we are as bacteria to them

 

[Pickman's model]

It could be argued that planets orbiting dwarf stars are more hospitable to life, and that as the universe ages it will contain lots more of these so life will become widespread as the universe ages.

go on then

 

[bi0boy]

go on then

I'm not sufficiently acquainted with theories of star and planet formation.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not sufficiently acquainted with theories of star and planet formation.

oh

 

[kabbes]

I think we don't really have a feel for how staggeringly unlikely multicellular life actually was in the first place. It seems, for example, that mitochondria, which are the part of our cells that provide us with all our energy, was originally an organism in its own right. It then somehow formed a symbiotic relationship with a predator. The symbiosis eventually became a single cell . All animal multicellular life is then based on that symbiosis. Without it, nothing would function. And that's just one of the many extraordinary developments that needed to happen in order for multicellular life to get off the drawing board. It's not just a matter of it taking billions of years to happen, it's also really unlikely even if you have billions of years. We just got lucky.

Not to say that it couldn't also happen somewhere else, but I'm not holding my breath. Single-celled organisms, yes, almost certainly. Complex intelligent life is a lot more unlikely. Total guesswork though, clearly.