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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.

19 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 jyoull · · Score: 5, Funny

      all those o's reminded me of gooooogle. can we google the universe for life?

    4. Re:We/they may be better off alone for now by Oxy+the+moron · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Being a Christian myself, I'll take a crack at this.

      My personal belief is that believing the Bible does not preclude belief in other life forms. In my mind, the book of Genesis clearly shows what God's hand did in our world, our solar system, our planet, etc. However, nowhere in the book of Genesis does it specifically say He didn't create life somewhere else. While it does say He created man in his own image, that does not mean it was impossible for Him to create life elsewhere in a different or similar form.

      Though I don't think many other Christians share my viewpoint...

      --

      Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.

    5. 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)
    6. 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.
    7. 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?

    1. Re:Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence by ave19 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Though the parent to your post was correct, you are off by just a tad.

      The basis for the assertion that there's a problem with the model is based on the current population of known extra solar planets. It's almost completely made up of big planets close their stars.

      Well, duh.

      We have only detected short period orbits because we need to see multiple passes of a planet in front of its start to confirm it's presence. This technique finds the shortest periods first. We have to keep watching to catch the longer periods.

      The bigger the planet, the bigger the wobble, the easier the confirmation of the presence of a planet.

      Big planets on short orbits are the first off the assembly line.

      We have to wait longer to detect longer orbits (if an orbit takes 10 earth years, and we need three passes of the planet to call it a dedection...)

      Smaller planets don't make their stars wobble enough to be detected in the current manner.

      The original post is absolutly correct, there's no news here.

      I just KNOW somebody's getting a new grant to take a look at this possibility, though.

      -ave

      --
      ...or maybe not.
  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. Probablility... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny
    Yeah, seems the odds of an Earthlike system are so remote that this one probably doesn't really exist and we're all dreaming it while drifting through the clouds of a gas giant. Hm.. I should start a religion based upon this and then sue anyone who threatens to reveal my trade secrets.

    Nah, been done before....

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  5. 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.

  6. Re:Ok Seriously... by Jonny_eh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's probably a good chance that there is other 'life' out there. But what about 'intelligent life', that would be more rare, we might just be an evolutionary fluke. Now try this: What are the odds of intelligent life existing out there at the same time as us. How long have we been around since radio was invented? 100 years? How much longer can we survive before we blow ourselves up? What if every other intelligent civilization never invented radio, or they did and then invented nuclear weapons, but didn't survive their cold war. If you actually think about it, we can be very VERY rare.

  7. Re:And if we are alone? by flibuste · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The best proof that there is intelligent life outthere is that they haven't tried to contact us"
    Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes)

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

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

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    Fight Spammers!
  9. 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.
  10. 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.

  11. Re:religious aspects of the question by falkryn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well if religion's brought up, I feel I must chime in with my islamic 2 dinars. As to the problem from a Christian perspective, which I for obvious reasons don't share though (raised Catholic mind you, and my Dad's a minister currently), what I wonder would be what does that say about Christ being God's unique son, whose atoning sacrifice is supposed to save humanity? What about all the other supposed species of beings out there who probably have not heard of Jesus? Are they all damned? Why would God only send his "son" down to one species. If one then thinks "well maybe He incarnated amongst them too" that definately throws the Christian doctrine in bind, about Jesus being unique and all, and rather relativizes the whole thing. Plus, multi incarnations (reincarnations?) definately seems to be drifting far out of accepted Christian orthodoxy.

    Anyway, that's your faith, I can only really comment best on mine. I'm a shia muslim, and in the corpus of our traditions, there are a number of references to there being many other Adams out there, other worlds with living beings. Like one that goes something like (don;t have the exact reference in front of me, Im at work ;-) The imam (for us shias, one of the twelve successors of the Prophet Muhammad) says something like: Do you think yours is the only Adam God has created, rather, He has created thousands upon thousands of other Adams, and yours is but the last.

    There are other traditions like this, and the Quran does mention a plurality of worlds. Since we don't believe in the Christian paradigms, original sin, Christ being the incarnation and son (we believe in him as a human prophet, not a god-man), the atonement through crucifixion, etc., these concerns wouldn't really affect our theology.

    That said, I'm not holding my breadth for us to soon, or even ever, make contact through means of technology. The universe is a mighty big place, our galaxy being only one many many more. Add to that, the enormity of the ages since it was created, who knows where or even when to look for other beings as us or otherwise? But as we say, God knows best....