Do aliens exist?

[aimeeandbeatles]

Do you think extraterrestrial life and/or intelligence exist?

 

[Birdjaguar]

You should have a moderator move all those posts here.

 

[Narz]

Yeah probably. The universe is huge. We'll probably never meet them tho.

Forgot what I read or watched lately that was talked about how if we ever met aliens it would be very unlikely they'd be biological because biological organisms don't cope very well w/ interstellar travel.

It's uncertain whether flesh & blood humans could ever even make it to Mars but if we can ever create intelligent silicone life (w/ no annoying needs for fresh air, water, gravity, etc.) it could possibly survive tens of thousands of years of space travel to the nearest solar system.

According to Google the nearest solar system is over 25,000,000,000,000 miles away so even if there was life there organic life from either one will never reach the other.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

You should have a moderator move all those posts here.

I couldn't even find the post where the discussion started.

 

[Lexicus]

if aliens don't exist explain this

 

[H4run]

One of microbiota in our body told his buddy
"I believe there might be other existence beside the one that exist in this giant enormous Bodyverse dude"
"lol dude pleaseeee"

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Do you think extraterrestrial life and/or intelligence exist?

I'm going to answer before this gets sidetracked into the 50th merry-go-round of ancient aliens crap.

The probes that have been sent out during the last 20 years or so have found more evidence that oceans likely existed on Venus and Mars in the past, before Mars froze, and Venus' greenhouse effect created an atmosphere of sulphur compounds and jacked the heat up so Venus is hotter than Mercury.

As for life, there was a recent article hypothesizing that sulphur-loving extremophiles might exist in Venus' atmosphere. And of course we've been looking for remnants of organic life on Mars for decades.

Where will we actually find current life elsewhere in the solar system? I would say that either the Venus hypothesis might be right, or more likely, Ceres (in the asteroid belt) or Enceladus and/or Titan (two of Saturn's moons).

However, it's doubtful that life would be intelligent, at least by the standards we know of now.

So I don't think we have to leave our solar system to find other life. We just need to figure out how to find it here... and have the ethical mindset not to exploit it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes but not flying around in UFOs conducting anal probes.

 

[r16]

no .

 

[AdamCrock]

For the bacteria out there we are alien intelligent species

 

[tjs282]

I'm confused on why this thread is now a "do aliens exist" thread.

I couldn't even find the post where the discussion started.

Mea culpa, possibly...

Although several people had mentioned aliens prior to that point, I made a passing remark essentially about "wanting to believe" back on page 3 of that thread:

Intelligent extraterrestrials are definitely out there (somewhere) though. I am firmly convinced of this, if only because it's just too depressing to imagine the alternative: that, after 15 billion years in an effectively infinite Universe, Homo sapiens is the only/most technologically/intellectually 'advanced' species ever to have appeared to date.

... which @MaryKB responded to, and the discussion about evidence versus probability pretty much snowballed from there.

 

[H4run]

For the bacteria out there we are alien intelligent species

And a potential planet at the same time.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I hope this thread turns into a discussion about religion and the supernatural

 

[Josu]

Yes but not flying around in UFOs conducting anal probes.

Just entering to say this, see it is allready written, go to other post

 

[hobbsyoyo]

If we are able to prove that the phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus is caused by alien life, that will be pretty convincing to me that there is ET.

Of course we would next have to prove that any life on Venus did not timately come from Earth one way or another.

 

[MaryKB]

I suggest you change your thread title from "Do aliens exist?" to "Do you believe aliens exist?"

There's no way we can discuss the first one. There's a very simple answer: "We don't know. We've discovered no evidence."

I do not believe intelligent alien life exists. I also believe, even if there is life outside of Earth somewhere in the universe, we will never find it.

I'm also of the belief we will never leave our solar system (not counting probes that drift out, I'm referring to human interstellar travel)

 

[Narz]

If we are able to prove that the phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus is caused by alien life, that will be pretty convincing to me that there is ET.

Would certainly add to the hypothesis that all life needs is specific conditions and its not the some 1 in infinity lucky chance

Of course we would next have to prove that any life on Venus did not timately come from Earth one way or another.

Would still be cool even so but yeah, would be even better if it could be shown life independently evolved there.

 

[Snerk]

Mathematically, yes. But even if they could, they'll probably never drop by.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I do not believe intelligent alien life exists. I also believe, even if there is life outside of Earth somewhere in the universe, we will never find it.

I'm also of the belief we will never leave our solar system (not counting probes that drift out, I'm referring to human interstellar travel)

That's bleak. I'm all about the scientific method, and I have confidence that we'll figure it out some day. We won't have a cozy Star Trek future, but if there is life in the solar system, there's no reason we won't ever find it. After all, there are at least 5 other locations where it could be (and I'm getting this either from the news or from documentaries in which real planetary scientists have outlined what they've discovered so far and what they hypothesize is possible and need to do more research to see if they're right or not).

I'm not saying I will live long enough to know these things, btw. I just think to where we were a century ago and where we are now. We could have been so much farther, if not for wars, both cold and hot, and the obsession for putting research into frivolous things over things that will really benefit us.

If we are able to prove that the phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus is caused by alien life, that will be pretty convincing to me that there is ET.

Of course we would next have to prove that any life on Venus did not timately come from Earth one way or another.

The article referenced extremophiles, such as the ones that live in the volcanic vents on Earth, that just love their cozy homes full of sulphuric acid. That's the nearest analogy they gave to what they hypothesize for Venus.

Any Earth contamination would be from the probes sent there, which I would hope did not contain sulphur-loving extremophiles from a volcanic vent. Unless the hypothetical volcano erupted and sent some there (would have to be some explosion).

 

[Synobun]

Isn't the prevailing theory about life on Earth tied to impact events from other bodies in the solar system/galaxy?

In particular, there weren't many opportunities for organic compounds to make it off Earth, no? IIRC, there wasn't any life on Earth yet during the moon impact. The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was strong enough to fling organic material out into space, but does that match the timelines of (possible) life on Mars, Venus, and the gas giant moons? Our atmosphere off-gases but not to the rate and force of the planets with broken atmospheres.

I'm sure our solar system has "swapped spit," so to speak, but not sure how likely it would be that life on other planets or moons locally would be specifically Earth-derived.