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I remember when I talked to my parents and others telling them it's obvious exoplanets exist - since our Sun is a star and there are many stars, it seemed logic
by hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
I remember when I talked to my parents and others telling them it's obvious exoplanets exist - since our Sun is a star and there are many stars, it seemed logical that at least some of them do have their planets. They would laugh and say, "Yes, it's not impossible, but for now it's just science-fiction."
Again, since life developed on our planet, it seems logical that it also exists at some of the exoplanets. We are just lacking an efficient method of communicating with them.
- rnk 4y agoYes, of course. It must be life is present in other places because of the vast number of suns with planets. We are starting to see that planets are forming around stars in some ways similar to us, other ways different (it's hard to see earth like planets bc of limits of our technology). We already know rocks can get ejected from one planet in our own solar system, and thus have certainly the possibility to spread small bits of dna from earth to mars (and it could go the other way). We have seen the 4 dna bases (plus the one that is different is rna) in space. We have the extremely suggestive but not certain possibility that methane detected on mars is coming from biological processes. There is certainty on life in the universe elsewhere - at least microbial but I think it's certain that higher level life forms are there. We don't know nearly as much about advanced life, like say animals, plants over bacteria, much less intelligent life. But the universe is so huge, I think it's likely there are other places with intelligent life.
- chrsw 4y agoBoth things can be true: the universe can be incomprehensibly vast and life can be incalculably rare.
- throwaway4aday 4y agoI still trust in the Copernican principal until proven otherwise.
- chrsw 4y agoMaybe. Or maybe we're not special only in the sense that every place is special. Is any one particlar day special? No. Has any day ever been duplicated? Never.
- throwaway4aday 4y agor/Showerthoughts is that way -->
- _ph_ 4y agoThe default assumption should be that the solar system is typical and that would lead to numerous earth-like planets in the galaxy and that would give hope to a lot of (intelligent) life. But untiol a few years ago, this was just a very plausible explanation. Since then we have confirmed thousands of planets. So while there are still a lot of unknowns for a good prediction, the planet count is at least consistant with the assumption, that solar-like systems are not an exception.
- Beltalowda 4y agoIf you accept the possibility of the multiverse as a "solution" to why the laws of the universe allow for life to develop in the first place (in quotes as it's not really a solution as it can never be proven), then it seems to me there is no reason to think that intelligent life can't be so rare that only in 1% of all universes that can support intelligent life, intelligent life actually develops.
- throwaway4aday 4y agoI believe this is the definition of multiplying entities unnecessarily.
- Beltalowda 4y agoThat's just a heuristic.
- throwaway4aday 4y agoA very good reason to use it!