4 ms·

I think we are being softened up for a definite announcement of extraterrestrial life. First, it's exoplanet, then many many exoplanets. Then exoplanets with a

I think we are being softened up for a definite announcement of extraterrestrial life. First, it's exoplanet, then many many exoplanets. Then exoplanets with atmospheres, then with water, now with chemicals that indicate life. Just like Mars. Viking 1976, weird results when testing for life. 1996, Mars Pathfinder, areography that looks like water formed it. Then rovers that find clays and other minerals that only form in liquid water. Then seasonal methane, and organic molecules in rocks. They know. There's too much trickling out. There's ET life.

PaulHoule 3y ago
I find UFOs hard to believe though. I think there is no way to say "faster than light" in God's geometry as much as I wished the superluminal neutrinos at CERN were real (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate_(TV_series)) I suspect interstellar travel is possible (somebody has done it in our light cone) but the odds of them showing up here in person right now seem unbelievable. It probably takes 10,000 or so years to make the trip and I think anyone who can swing that can also manage to subsist on comets between the stars and would probably be completely indifferent to dry inner solar system worlds like ours. That is, if there were "grabby" aliens there wouldn't be any Ceres and probably not any Pluto (who needs the Sun when you have D-D fusion?) I'm amused by the scenario that interstellar travellers might spend 10,000 years in transit (say with some fusion drive that makes relatively low thrust for a verrrry long time) and show up here and not have a space shuttle capable of landing and taking off from a world like the Earth (why haul it for 10,000 years?) with some luck they might have plans to 3-d print one but might still take a decade or so of fumbling to get it right.
- bediger4000 3y ago
  I'm with you on this. The announcement is going to be about unicellular Mars life or unicellular life on one of those ice moons with subsurface oceans. The announcement about observation of Bussard Ramjet exhaust plumes, or light sail launch lasers will happen after the unicellular life dust settles. And that could be decades. A large fraction of the US population is young earth creationist. They're not going to take news of a 2nd abiogenesis easily.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    Young earth creationism always struck me as bad theology. (Who can believe God is that small when we know better?)

PaulHoule 3y ago

I find UFOs hard to believe though. I think there is no way to say "faster than light" in God's geometry as much as I wished the superluminal neutrinos at CERN were real (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate_(TV_series)) I suspect interstellar travel is possible (somebody has done it in our light cone) but the odds of them showing up here in person right now seem unbelievable. It probably takes 10,000 or so years to make the trip and I think anyone who can swing that can also manage to subsist on comets between the stars and would probably be completely indifferent to dry inner solar system worlds like ours. That is, if there were "grabby" aliens there wouldn't be any Ceres and probably not any Pluto (who needs the Sun when you have D-D fusion?) I'm amused by the scenario that interstellar travellers might spend 10,000 years in transit (say with some fusion drive that makes relatively low thrust for a verrrry long time) and show up here and not have a space shuttle capable of landing and taking off from a world like the Earth (why haul it for 10,000 years?) with some luck they might have plans to 3-d print one but might still take a decade or so of fumbling to get it right.

bediger4000 3y ago
I'm with you on this. The announcement is going to be about unicellular Mars life or unicellular life on one of those ice moons with subsurface oceans. The announcement about observation of Bussard Ramjet exhaust plumes, or light sail launch lasers will happen after the unicellular life dust settles. And that could be decades. A large fraction of the US population is young earth creationist. They're not going to take news of a 2nd abiogenesis easily.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  Young earth creationism always struck me as bad theology. (Who can believe God is that small when we know better?)