So tell me again there can't be life out there...

... when the largest ecosystem ON THIS PLANET has just been found. It's where nobody expected it: hundreds of meters below the seabed, with no light, no oxygen but lots of rock to chew on.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/03/microbes-likely-abundant-hundred.html

Given the vast size of the universe(s) it would be disturbingly surprising were Earth to be the ONLY place in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE(s) with life. The chances Earth is the ONLY place with life in the universe(s) are miniscule.

Agree, there are no doubt many life forms pondering life somewhere else. But will any of us ever overcome the distance bugaboo?

Ideally, there's a solar system with two relatively close planets and they can meet each other. It would be like discovering a world-sized exotic species zoo comparing all the different animals, plants, cultures, etc. etc. that evolved there.

If the universe is infinite (we're not certain about that, yet), then life absolutely exists elsewhere, as there are only a finite number of combinations for matter. Therefore, somewhere out there, is an exact duplicate of Earth, with a duplicate of you, sitting there, reading this.

Indeed. That is something I like to use whenever I want to make heads explode. It's so logical and yet so surreal

I'm afraid that this still doesn't much change any of the calculations that one might make about extraterrestrial life.

Not until we find some form of life that doesn't require liquid water. Then all bets are off.

Douglas Adams would've been 61 last week. He pointed out that there was a planet of inner spring mattresses and a planet of ballpoint pens out there somewhere.

At issue is not whether there can be extraterrestrial life; certainly, the odds that there is -- in some form, sapient or not -- are very high. The simple fact is that until we're advanced enough to go out looking for it, or it gets curious enough to come here looking for us, it simply doesn't matter whether it's out there or not.

It sort of like wondering whether there's a house a few blocks over with a family living in it. Probably, but who cares.

Here's what the alien life will look like:

Finding the biggest ecosystem on this planet in 2013 tells me that we don't/can't look in all the places where life could be possible. When you can make it below the seabed, you can make it anywhere. Mars comes to mind, or the large moons. We can't prove bacterial life on worlds lightyears away but on our neighborinos? Indeed we can.

Sentient or not is IMHO not the big question at this moment. If it's out there, anything's possible. Finding a civilization roughly at our stage of development might be impossible, however. It's a timing problem. We have only been on this rock for 1/40.000th of its lifespan. The odds that two such 1/40.000th overlap close by are astronomical.

I'd love to concede an error on that btw.

Even better: they'll eat lawyers and piss beer.

The main unknown in this is how often or easily life can arise, not how stubbornly it can cling on (Klingon LOL) in harsh environments. Of that, we have plenty of evidence.

Even if there were intelligent life out there, the odds are much greater that it arose, died off, and will never be seen again than rise up to meet us in the starry skies.

There are organisms on this earth that require very very little water to survive, cockroaches being one of them. As I can't imagine a life form ever not requiring ANY water to survive, so long as there are minuscule amounts on a planet, life could be possible.

?

Of course, there MAY be life out there, maybe even in, within our own solar system, radically different from life as WE know, and what LITTLE we know about THAT at this point if you think about it. Such life may view the Earth as a LIFELESS hellhole, always has been, always will be, in & from their POV, rooted in their very different life chemistry. Are we so different? We view Venus as a lifeless hellhole, which it IS from OUR biochemical POV.

Of course this line of thinking is inherently & intrinsically a ?. Simply speculation regarding alien life.

?

This is my biggest worry and hope. Given the amount we've discovered and are still discovering about our own solar system, it's pretty much a given that life exists exists elsewhere in the universe. It's also a given that life has existed and will exist in the future if it does not currently exist in certain areas. The problem, however, is what level of "development" is this life form at. I worry about the lifeforms who are eons less advanced than us just as much as I worry about those who are eons more advanced than us. The chances of us finding a life form at the approximate level of "development" as us are incredibly low. That makes me rather sad, but I hope we find a more advanced, more benevolent-than-humans species who will be like "oh yeah here's a bunch of other chill planets and species we've discovered" (much like the premise for Andromeda). I also hope we find a less "developed" life form that we don't ruin, but are still capable of communicating with.

My biggest worries, though, are that we encounter a malevolent life form in the cosmos or (just as likely) we are that malevolent life form. We might end up destroying the less developed life forms without realizing it.

^ Humanity already IS a malevolent organism yes? And yes I know that's* a ludicrously over-beaten dead horse of a cliche & slogan at this point, but even so.




* Not LITERALLY what I wrote ^, but the, that idea.

Yes we are. My hope is that we will someday overcome that.

We will not. It's our nature.

A depressing thought.

Oh, let's stop pinning it all on humanity.

Life itself is a destructive entropy-bringing chemical reaction.

Like fire.

There you go. That's EXACLY and PRECISELY what LIFE is, when you cut to the chase.