Astronomer: There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in Milky Way

[Daradon]

Re Evman150: Whoa, ok man. I'm ignorant because I think it's illogical that there aren't hundreds of billions of planets with intelligent life on them, in this galaxy alone. When we haven't even found or seen one.

I never said that the wasn't any, just that I highly doubt there are hundreds of billions of INTELLIGENT life, in this galaxy. Which is a pretty logical statement.

I'm open to life on other planets, I'm open to intelligent life on other planets. But the fact is, if it was teeming with it, so close, we would have seen signs of it by now.

Lastly I'm not the only one who though the values he was assigning were messed up. Other posters in this very thread have, not to mention, oh most of the scientific community.

But thanks for the ignorance label... good one.

I had no idea someone could take a life on other planets thread/idea so personally.

EDIT: As Dan02 said 'until we find atleast 1 other civilization I think it's premature to try to assign a value to it.'

We haven't even found 1. Heck we haven't even found fossils of life or microscopic life.

Chill buddy. You can disagree, but keep your insults to yourself thanks.

[photon]

Originally Posted by worth

Also, we're giving ourselves a lot of credit here. Why would an advanced civilization that can travel thousands of light years want to bother with us anyway? To them, we're nothing special. I'm sure they have other concerns to look after. Not one measly tiny planet. If i'm running a galactic civilization, i'm probably gonna be more worried about the Andromedans that are harvesting the energy from black holes to run their super massive collider weapons than the teeny weeny earthlings.

I think it's more a case of us knowing about them.. if there were other civilizations in the galaxy, "present" or past (if they are advanced enough) we should be able to see them...

Fermi's Paradox.

But your point about the size of the galaxy is important, the span of time that humanity has been blaring out radio waves and impacting our planet to the point of detectability to other planets is very very short.. and maybe in 1000 years we'll be invisible again (everything communicates via non-broadcasting methods, etc). So maybe they're out there we just can't see them, the short span of making a lot of noise being passed.

Anyway it's all gone over in Fermi's paradox.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Daradon

I never said that the wasn't any, just that I highly doubt there are hundreds of billions of INTELLIGENT life, in this galaxy. Which is a pretty logical statement.

To be fair the article didn't say billions of planets with intelligent life, just billions of planets with life of some kind.

[evman150]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Whoa, ok man. I'm ignorant because I think it's illogical that there aren't hundreds of billions of planets with intelligent life on them, in this galaxy alone. When we haven't even found or seen one.

I never said that the wasn't any, just that I highly doubt there are hundreds of billions of INTELLIGENT life, in this galaxy. Which is a pretty logical statement.

I'm open to life on other planets, I'm open to intelligent life on other planets. But the fact is, if it was teeming with it, so close, we would have seen signs of it by now.

First off, whether you're open to life on other planets is a meaningless statement. Who cares.

But the fact is, if it was teeming with it, so close, we would have seen signs of it by now.

That is NOT a fact, and the fact you think its a fact makes you IGNORANT on this topic.

I'm ignorant because I think it's illogical that there aren't hundreds of billions of planets with intelligent life on them

That is not even remotely close to what this article is saying.

I'm not attacking you, I'm just stating the facts. You speak in this thread like you are some sort of authority, or at the very least have some basis for your stated 'facts'. You are not an authority, and you obviously have no foundation of knowledge to base your 'facts' and statements on. All you are doing is spreading falsities and ignorance. And ya, that pisses me off.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by worth

It takes over 8 minutes for the photons from the Sun to reach earth. The photons travel at the speed of light, obviously. So traveling at the maximum allowable relativistic speed it still takes minutes for them to get here and that's from the nearest star to our planet.

That's all fine and dandy, (and yes I am up on the vastness of space and the speed of light and all that) but they guy is proposing hundreds of millions of civilizations. Surely a few of them would have conquered stellar or interstellar travel now. Surely a few of them would have colonized other planets or built giant stations we could see. Surely a few would have come visiting.

Originally Posted by worth

The milky way is 100,000 light years in diameter. It will take you 100,000 years to get from one end to the other traveling at the speed of light. We're talking about one galaxy here. There are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe from estimates. The numbers are too enormous for us to comprehend. The distances are so vast, the possibility of there being hundreds of intelligent life forms in our own galaxy and not run into each other is still plausible.

Yes but he said, in OUR galaxy. Again I am well aware of he vastness of space, and the sheer number of stars and galaxies, but we're not even arguing the universe here when he is suggesting hundreds of millions in our galaxy.

Originally Posted by worth

Also, we're giving ourselves a lot of credit here. Why would an advanced civilization that can travel thousands of light years want to bother with us anyway? To them, we're nothing special. I'm sure they have other concerns to look after. Not one measly tiny planet. If i'm running a galactic civilization, i'm probably gonna be more worried about the Andromedans that are harvesting the energy from black holes to run their super massive collider weapons than the teeny weeny earthlings.

Again true, but you'd think we would have crossed paths, much like the species on this planet have. But most of all, you think that we would have seen evidence of them. If they are harvesting black hole energy or terraforming worlds or colonizing or whatever, we'd probably see some evidence of it. Maybe we're not be able to reach them, maybe not even communicate with them, but if we can see the outer edges of the universe and gaze into other galaxies I'm sure we would have seen galatic civilazations if they were so common.

Again, I'm not saying there is nothing out there at all, but if it was truly common, I'm thinking we would have noticed something. Sure, maybe we are missing one of two, or even 1000 or 2000. But hundreds of millions? Doubt it. Doesn't make sense.

[flylock shox]

Man, I remember learning about Kermi's paradox as a kid.

I mean, there you are, a talking frog, and you've got this chick who's all over you, but she's a pig. And you can either turn her down, which could mean turning down the only chance you'll ever have to get laid (because you're a talking frog), or you bang a pig.

Really makes you think.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by evman150

First off, whether you're open to life on other planets is a meaningless statement. Who cares.

But the fact is, if it was teeming with it, so close, we would have seen signs of it by now.

That is NOT a fact, and the fact you think its a fact makes you IGNORANT on this topic.

I'm ignorant because I think it's illogical that there aren't hundreds of billions of planets with intelligent life on them

That is not even remotely close to what this article is saying.I'm not attacking you, I'm just stating the facts. You speak in this thread like you are some sort of authority, or at the very least have some basis for your stated 'facts'. You are not an authority, and you obviously have no foundation of knowledge to base your 'facts' and statements on. All you are doing is spreading falsities and ignorance. And ya, that pisses me off.

I'd suggest you stop calling me ignorant if you wanna discuss this man.

Re: intelligent life, guess I missed that (or mis-read that) based on what people were saying here. But it doesn't change it THAT much. We have not seen ANY evidence of life either living now or having lived in the past. To assign a value to that equation is premature and not entirely logical.

If you wanna start blathering on about life out there when there is no proof of it much the same way people argue about god then go ahead, but I find it hard to believe I am the ignorant or illogical one when you can't even show a shread of proof. L ike I sad, disagree if you want, but their is no reason to go off at the mouth.

Chill.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by photon

To be fair the article didn't say billions of planets with intelligent life, just billions of planets with life of some kind.

Fair enough, I misread that (more on the discussion I think) but it doesn't change it THAT much. As you said yourself, wit this idea was correct, we'd probably be able to see some evidence of it by now.

[4X4]

Yo Daradon... Relax, dude. Arguing with evman is an exercise in futility. Evman is our local astrophysicist. Disagreeing with him about anything beyond our atmosphere would be like telling Ronald Pagan that cardigans and corderouy are out of style.

[evman150]

Originally Posted by Daradon

That's all fine and dandy, (and yes I am up on the vastness of space and the speed of light and all that) but they guy is proposing hundreds of millions of civilizations. Surely a few of them would have conquered stellar or interstellar travel now. Surely a few of them would have colonized other planets or built giant stations we could see. Surely a few would have come visiting.

Okay, you know what, you're not getting it. So I'm going to try and explain it to you.

The article does not say 'hundreds of billions of civilizations' or 'hundreds of millions of civilizations'. It says that on those planets with liquid water, a majority may have developed life. The article does not present a hypothetical fraction of the earth-like planets with water on them. Water is far from a given.

Earth has been home to a technical civilization for around 70 years (radio signals). This is 70 years out of 5,000,000,000 years the earth has been around. The universe has been around for 13,700,000,000 years. Life comes and goes. Not all skeins of life end in intelligence. Dinosaurs were stupid animals. They were huge and dominated the earth for over 150 million years. But they were stupid. How can we put a number on the fraction of evolutionary skeins that contain intelligence? On the earth it has to be considered small.

Other (huge) factors include civilizations killing themselves, or falling prey to an extinction level event.

Perhaps any civilization that has the intelligence to come here is part of some galactic consortium that has adopted a policy of non-interference with developing civilizations? Perhaps we will be contacted when we are ready?

Maybe they're already here (this is highly unlikely). It's pretty ridiculous to think aliens would visit us in a 'smash and grab' manner.

The overwhelmingly most realistic scenario is that we just haven't been detected yet, and that there aren't that many technical civilizations in our galaxy. We almost killed ourselves after being a technical civilization for only a few decades. So how likely is it that civilizations survive themselves?

Life could develop on every one of those 'earth like planets' with water. But if only 1 out of 100 develops into a technical civilization, and technical civilizations only last for 1000 years on average because of self-destruction and ELEs, and we put the water percentage at 10%, then the number of technical civilizations in the milky way drops to around 200. And that leaves some mighty distance gaps between us.

[Bunk]

I've heard astronomers say that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.

When I sit on a beach and think about that, it boggles the mind. Heck, when I look at the sand in the 5 feet around me where I am sitting, it seems impossible to me there could be that many stars - then I think about how many beaches there are in the world.

[flylock shox]

Originally Posted by evman150

Dinosaurs were stupid animals. They were huge and dominated the earth for over 150 million years. But they were stupid.

I liked this part best.

[MJK]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I've heard astronomers say that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.

When I sit on a beach and think about that, it boggles the mind. Heck, when I look at the sand in the 5 feet around me where I am sitting, it seems impossible to me there could be that many stars - then I think about how many beaches there are in the world.

You probably watched BBC - Space. Now THAT was something special to watch!

[4X4]

Originally Posted by MJK

You probably watched BBC - Space. Now THAT was something special to watch!

If you wanna see something really special, watch evman tie his shoe... "Ten minutes to Wapner!!"

[photon]

Originally Posted by evman150

Life could develop on every one of those 'earth like planets' with water. But if only 1 out of 100 develops into a technical civilization, and technical civilizations only last for 1000 years on average because of self-destruction and ELEs, and we put the water percentage at 10%, then the number of technical civilizations in the milky way drops to around 200. And that leaves some mighty distance gaps between us.

That's an interesting point. That we haven't been wiped out by a gamma ray burst or a nearby supernova or one of the other many many ways a galaxy could kill us kind of implies we're in a "habitable zone" of the galaxy, just like earth is in a habitable zone around the sun.

I'll have to look to see if any work's been done on that, you could cut huge swaths of candidate systems out that way probably. There must be regions with too much radiation, too many old stars too close together, that kind of thing.

[Daradon]

Perhaps I missed the jist, I understand they are talking about planets that could hold water, and water being a strong factor for the possibility of life but there were quotes like this in the article.

'offering fresh insights into the possible existence of inhabited worlds and intelligent civilizations in space.'

But then admit this"

'Forgan readily admits the results are an educated guess at best, since there are still many unanswered questions about how life formed on Earth and only limited information about the 330 "exoplanets" -- those circling sun-like stars outside the solar system -- discovered so far.'

So sorry if I am being skeptical. Funny how all the scientists and sci-fi lovers love to play the skeptic and jump all over the 'god crowd' looking for proof or common sense, but are indignant to a little skepticism themselves.

Show me a fossil from another planet. Show me a single celled organism from another planet. Show me scars or ruins on the face of a distant planet. Show me unusual energy activity that is does not fall into the realm of natural by our understanding. Show me a signal of some sorts.

Until you do that I don't think being skeptical to this rather giant claim is illogical or ignorant. It would still only be 1 out of a possible millions as the idea suggests. But it would make it a lot more likely.

The thing is, if you multiply 0 by any number even if it's a million billion trillion, you still get 0. So I find this to be a wild claim.

I know people like to get excited but think about all the fuss that was over that meteorite or space rock that supposedly had fossils in it. Came up to be a no show.

I thought science was about disproving things instead of making wild claims.

But yeah, I'm the ignorant one.

[evman150]

Until you do that I don't think being skeptical to this rather giant claim is illogical or ignorant. It would still only be 1 out of a possible millions as the idea suggests. But it would make it a lot more likely.

You already have one. We are it.

We have experience with one world out of the hundred billion. So far we're 1/1. Looking pretty good so far.

So sorry if I am being skeptical. Funny how all the scientists and sci-fi lovers love to play the skeptic and jump all over the 'god crowd' looking for proof or common sense, but are indignant to a little skepticism themselves.

You're not being skeptical, you're being ridiculous and ignorant. The things you ask for are far beyond our abilities. You want a fossil from another planet? The closest earth-like planet is most likely 20+ light years away. How do you plan on our scientists attaining something like that?

My advise to you is to either leave this thread, or start asking constructive questions and stop making baseless, ignorant statements.

[ken0042]

I leave this thread for a couple of hours and look at what happens......

Guys, let's all tone it back a bit. These types of threads where proof is beyond our abilities often stir up the emothions. Let's try to treat each other with some respect. Cause if we don't, what will the aliens think when they read this.

[Daradon]

Give it up, even the guy in the article itself said 'this is an educated guess AT BEST'.

Guess you missed that part. Twice.

That's proof right there that I'm not out to lunch.

We could have had a nice conversation or debate had you not resorted to name calling in your very first post. But your insistence that I don't understand this and am being baseless and ignorant is not only untrue, but filled with venom and vitriol for some weird reason.

If the guy himself says it's a educated guess at best, how is me saying I think it's a wild claim ignorant? Hmmm? Last I checked educated guesses weren't considered proof (or even a plausible theory) and people that don't agree with them aren't ignorant.

Like I said, science is supposed to be about disproving things. Just because you can't (as you said it might be out the the realm of our technology) doesn't mean you can suddenly make claims about it.

You're using the same logic that the god crowd does. You can't NOT prove 'He' doesn't exist.

Give it a rest. Whether you're the resident astrophysicist or not, you've forgotten one of the most basic tenants of science.

You had no right to take up to that notch. And are completely incorrect in doing so.

Like I said disagree if you want, but there is nothing wrong with my understand or line of thinking.

You have your belief and you want to belief in it, fine, but you're coming off like the people who believe someone is listening to their prayers. You have no proof, and only conjecture.

EDIT: I'll stop now if the mods want, I was posting before that suggestion came through

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Gozer

We think Dark Matter comprises most of the universe, but we don't know what it does or where it comes from or anything about it, but trust us, we're experts. -TMQ

I think most of these reports come from the Astronomy equivalent of Ehklund, doesn't really understand whats going on but he hears something interesting and then tells other people about it. And unlike hockey no one can call him on any bullspit.

It's job security. NASA scientists are always needing to find reasons to justify their positions. When economic times turn bad, NASA is often one of the programs that is cut. In fact, I believe that Obama stated during the election that he would like to cut a NASA program in favour of something more useful to people.