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Are We Alone in the Universe?

Posted by michael on from the lonely-out-there dept.

cynic10508 writes "CNN is running a story about how ours might be a unique solar system. Of the 100+ systems currently known to contain planets, all contain seemingly only gas giants. However, this may be a case of current technology and techniques being unable to detect planets similar to Earth." There are also BBC and Space.com stories.

12 of 759 comments (clear)

  1. We/they may be better off alone for now by erick99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I think most people have an intutive sense that we are, indeed, alone in the universe. We have been looking for "life" outside of our planet for quite a while with nothing even approaching a hit. I participate in the SETI project via BOINC but that is out of a hope that maybe life is way far out there and not quite what we would expect. Maybe we are looking for the wrong sort of thing. Who is to say another life form even has a physical body. I am not optimistic that we will find life out in the universe in my lifetime (I'm 46). On the other hand, I am not so sure finding another form of life outside of Earth is such a good idea. We have a hard enough time getting along with people on the other side of our own planet. Well, this is all one man's conjecture. I am looking forward to reading other /.'s opinions and thoughts. I support whole-heartedly anyone who disagrees with me, it would be fun, in this case, to be wrong.

    Cheers,

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
    1. Re:We/they may be better off alone for now by meme_police · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We've been looking how long? How old is the universe? How big is the universe? There is life out there, it could take a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time to find it, though.

      --

      The meme police, They live inside of my head

    2. Re:We/they may be better off alone for now by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On the other hand, I am not so sure finding another form of life outside of Earth is such a good idea. We have a hard enough time getting along with people on the other side of our own planet.

      I suspect that getting alien radio signals would make our differences look rather trivial. Nothing like a common threat (and it would be seen as a threat) to make people stop fighting each other.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    3. Re:We/they may be better off alone for now by RWerp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Granted, if the aliens look fairly similar to us and have the ability to communicate with us it will probably all work out fairly well, eventually anyway.

      Or not. Aztecs were very similar to Pizarro or Cortez, but this did not prevent their demise.

      --
      "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
    4. Re:We/they may be better off alone for now by RatBastard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We may be the first intellegent life to exist in the universe. Or we may be the first ones to live past the developement of nuclear weapons. Or we might be the first ones not killed off by a asteroid colliding with our planet, or a plague, or a massive volcanic eruption, etc... It doesn't take a whole hell of a lot to kill a species off. We can't even count the number of near misses the human race survived.

      The universe is massive and ancient. It is also heartless and dangerous.

      --
      Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
    5. Re:We/they may be better off alone for now by b00le · · Score: 5, Insightful
      What if our situation is unique or we are the first? You can't build any assumptions from a sample size of one.

      While it's true that we can't do statistics with a sample of one, it's not as if there is no data. The universe (very large) is certainly a datum, and one of the things astronomy has taught us is that it seems everywhere very similar: made of the same stuff and subject to the same laws. And in this one sample we have many subsamples showing how life appears as soon as, and everywhere, it can.
      It doesn't matter how probable or improbable life is - even if it occurred less than once in every galaxy that would be far more probable than our being unique. Unique is a big word. That idea that we are unique cannot be counted as rational in the face of even the little we know - in fact, it is precisely because it is not rational that it is often so passionately defended. What it would mean - and this is the superstition hardly anyone wants to abandon - would be that we were not natural. But we are.
      --
      Science fiction for grown-ups...
  2. Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is this even being posted here?

  3. Only 120 solar systems? by Amberlock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I bought 120 lottery tickets and didn't find a winner. Must not be possible to win the lottery then, right?

  4. This is not "news for nerds" by ghost_world · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's "news" for dummies.

    With current technologies (and the amount of time we've been looking) we can only detect very large planets that are quite close their parent star...

    SURPRISE!!!! We've only found systems with large planets close to the parent star.

    Big news.

  5. Hard to find by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hey, it is even hard to find intelligent life on this planet.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
  6. Most people have an intuitive sense that the... by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...Earth isn't hurtling through space at high speed relative to nearby objects, and certainly don't have a sense that it's orbiting the sun. Thankfully science is informed by more than intuition.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  7. Patterns by ndavidg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are 200 billion suns in this Galaxy and 125 billion galaxies. The process in which solar systems are formed is caused by forces of physics and the laws of chemistry which are the same through the universe. Just because a terrestial planet has not been seen by human eyes or touched by human feet does not mean it does not exist. In the same way that Europeans in the middle ages could deduce that the earth is round from seeing ships sink in the horizon, we can deduce that planets like Earth or Mars are plentiful throughout the Galaxy. Our geocentricity misleads us to use phrases like "Known Universe" in the same way that Eurpoean history misleads us to call America the "New World" and to say that Columbus "Discovered" America.