3 ms·
When I was in school, we knew of no extra-solar planets. Now that we know how to look, they seem to be everywhere. Similarly, I suspect life will turn out to be
by signal11 11y ago
When I was in school, we knew of no extra-solar planets. Now that we know how to look, they seem to be everywhere. Similarly, I suspect life will turn out to be common once we can send probes to the places that could harbour them.
Intelligent life might well be an order-of-magnitude rarer, and life intelligent enough to be detectable by SETI rarer still. (And we could well be the most advanced civilization in our light cone -- someone has to be.)
- bduerst 11y agoI'm skeptical, if not for the sheer improbability of our own abiogenesis event on Earth. I think that if we do find naturally occurring "life" elsewhere in the universe, it will be unlike anything that we have ever dreamed of and challenge our definition of the word. Or maybe it will be cellular just like ours and responsible for seeding Earth.