I’m interested in your take on the possibility of life existing on other planets.

A near certainty, I’d say. Possibly an absolute certainty.

Why wouldn’t it?

I hear that signs of life have been coming from Uranus.

EDIT:You have been probing it then that is one photoshop i dont want to see

What molly says

If there are 400 billion stars out there and one out of a million of those has planets, then 400 billion divided by 1 million have planets. A billion divided by a million is a thousand (or a million in Britain, but it’s an American movie). Out of those 400 thousand planets, if one out of a million has life, then 400,000 divided by 1 million (1,000,000) has life. That’s 0.4 planets with life, or a 4 out of ten (or one out of 2.5) chance of finding any planet with life at all. Now, if one out of a million of those have intelligent life, then there’s about a one in 2.5 million (continuing to divide by a million) chance that there’s intelligent life anywhere.

that is just for our galaxy btw and there seems to be atabput 100 billion galaxies

Evidence driven – we have only one datum, so it’s not possible to extrapolate.

evidence driven answer would be that we have a complete absence of data to either prove or disprove the theory, therefore although it remains a possibility any contention either way would be mere conjecture.

400 billion stars

That’s a fairly rounded number. I bet that’s just made up. 😀

The two most likely scenarios are:
1) There is lots – based on just how many planets there are out there
2) There is only us – as that’s the only evidence we actually have

I hope it’s option 1 but no-one can do anything other than speculate.

That’s a fairly rounded number. I bet that’s just made up.

God made it that way.

There’s the odd unexplained radio signal but not much evidence

Organic molecules elsewhere in the solar system, even on comets ! Make it more likely one of the mars rovers turning up something would be nice but I imagine that any living bacteria would be deep and slow growing

Europas[*] probably a good shout but not easy to get at

It is possible there is life on other planets.

There’s life here. From available information there seem to be other planets in the ‘goldilocks’ zone.

If the universe really is infinite, then anything which could possibly happen, must happen.

I’m going to assume that you are asking whether there is life on another planet within our own universe. We don’t really know how big the universe is or how long it will last. If either of these are infinite, as many think, then life on other planets is statistically inevitable. We know roughly how big our observable universe is, but we don’t really know exactly what happened to create life on Earth, so it’s hard to judge how rare an event it could be.

define life…

Trouble is there’s so much that we just don’t know or can’t account for. There could be as many as 40 billion earth sized planets orbiting habitable zones around stars in the milky way alone…11 billion of those could be in orbit around sun sized stars. But..How much does a gas giant like Jupiter play, it’s drawn countless earth destroying asteroids into it’s orbit, without a large-ish moon orbiting reasonably closely it’s argued you wouldn’t get tides, which some scientists have argued are essential for early life.

Some have argued that all civilisations will destroy themselves through war at some point, or will reach a point where they are almost at space faring level (look up Type 1,2,3 civilisations theory)

extinction seems to be a normal event, perhaps we’ve missed ours, perhaps it’s still to come.

Perhaps we’re the ones that have succeeded, in which case we’re incredibly rare, in lots of ways, if they find simple life on other planets or bodies in our solar systems, it’s probably curtains.

Perhaps there are races so advanced that we don’t even raise a mention. How often in the woods have you stood and stopped to try to communicate with an ant hill?

To many unanswerable questions, best we look after this planet. It may be the only one ever.

I’d say it’s pretty likely as the numbers seem to suggest it. However it could be that in the billions of galaxies, containing billions of stars and billions of planets life has arisen once, here and here alone.
Which makes the fact that we destroy life so casually a bit sad.

Don’t have evidence, but i am certain we are alone.

It’s a big numbers game.

The chances of life (as we know it) on other planets is very small. Circumstances have to be very precise.

However, there are many, many, many planets out there. With enough samples, even the most unlikely events can suddenly become quite likely. The odds of winning the lottery are (sorry) astronomically low, but someone somewhere wins week in, week out due to the sheer volume of tickets sold.

So, yes, I think that there is life other than us out there. The numbers are so stupidly large that it’s highly unlikely that there isn’t. IMHO.

I’m with Cougar on this one. Based on numbers, I can’t imagine there not being life elsewhere in the universe.

Then again, maybe I don’t count as an ‘evidence-driven sciencey type’.

What type of life are we talking about? Just look at the incredible variety we have on our home planet, then consider the vast number of planets out there which are likely to have suitable conditions for life of one sort or another to start.
Fully self-aware, intelligent life is likely to be much scarcer, but considering Ravens are self-aware, and appear to be as intelligent as a four year-old child, (or a fair number of adults I’ve met over the years), then intelligent, tool-using but non-industrial life could easily be relatively common, but we, and they, would be unable to ever know, because of their lack of communication/travel ability off-world.
A water-world, for example, could be inhabited by fully intelligent Cetacea-analogues, but they would be hampered by the inability to use tools, and to develop communication tech that would extend off-world, but would they actually give a toss? Are we the only species with a huge enough ego to think itself alone in a possibly infinite universe when it comes to being able to reason and think about it?
Personally, I think we as a species are pretty insignificant.

I will ask the wife as not sure she is from this planet

We just don’t know

Everything Cougar says is true except we have no idea what the chances of it starting are given the right conditions

It could be any where from near certainty to lucky its happened any where in the universe ever

Well it happened here, but I wouldn’t say that there’s intelligent life out there.

I wouldn’t necessarily say there’s intelligent life here either…

The numbers win it for me too (and I suppose they are evidence-driven), given the ridiculous number of other galaxies out there it seems a certainty to me that there is other life of some sort. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be pretty common (relatively speaking).

But the unfortunate truth is that the universe is a really big place so with our current understanding of physics we won’t be making contact with anyone.

Don’t have evidence, but i am certain we are alone.

Can I ask why?

This was done fairly recently.

It’s certainly possible.

THere was a documntary, apparently a long time ago in a galaxy far far away….

Some form of life is almost certain.

Drake equation is quite interesting in dealing with questions of estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy

I did laugh at the guy on the BBC Have Your Say comments saying that the comet landing was pointless because it is impossible for there to be any life in space.

Not sure where exactly he posted that from… 😆

When something like this is raised I get a bit paranoid and wonder if we are experiencing a life that we think we are, e.g something like the Matrix. Assuming things can be taken at face value life may be closer to home than we think. Need not look to planets around other stars. Europa (Jupiter) and Enceladus (Saturn) could be good shouts.

extinction seems to be a normal event, perhaps we’ve missed ours

For reasons I shouldn’t have to explain, I VERY much doubt that.

There’s the odd unexplained radio signal

Ooh tell me more.

At the end of the day, we don’t even know the origins of life on this planet.

There are many conspiracy theories presented by scientific experts of how the various building blocks of life fused together miraculously, but despite merely being reasoned conjecture the majority are presented as fact…

Scientists are in many respects detectives, piecing together fragments of evidence in the hope of revealing the bigger picture.

The mysteries surrounding the diversity and interaction of the various ecosystems which create and sustain life are in themselves mind boggling and to fully separate and define what came 1st and where is an exercise in conjecture.

Some claim that Fungi may be a life form with origins beyond this planet.

Given what we know of the scale of the universe, it would be pretty silly to assume we are so damn special and unique.

Given what we know of the cross section of the planet (i.e. nothing conclusive), we may find there is undiscovered life within, though I doubt it.

I don’t often say this but I agree with JHJ. We always say that life must follow the path we think it should. The periodic table was created in the blink of an eye, yet we act as though the universe acts purely within these elements. We have no real idea how life may come to be.

There are many conspiracy theories

At least learn what the words mean

A conspiracy theory is an explanatory proposition that accuses two or more persons, a group, or an organization of having caused or covered up, through secret planning and deliberate action, an illegal or harmful event or situation.

Only you could apply this here.

to fully separate and define what came 1st and where is an exercise in conjecture.

You really dont get the scientific methodology. Its test its conjecture[ hypothesis] to get evidence.

At least learn what the words mean

I’ve got this:

con·spir·a·cy:

A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.

the·o·ry:

An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

You really dont get the scientific methodology. Its test its conjecture[ hypothesis] to get evidence.

Bit confused by your wording there, but hopefully get your general meaning.

Show me the conclusive evidence of the origins of life… or is it just conjecture?

as per:

con·spir·a·cy

A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.

the·o·ry

An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

Given the infinite expanse of the universe, I’d say anyone suggesting we’re the only intelligent species here is one totally arrogant MOFO. You would absolutely have to be completely crazy to suggest we’re the only civilised species around. Really, you’d have to be stark, raving mad.

Show me the conclusive evidence of the origins of life… or is it just conjecture?

I’m not going to say it’s conclusive, but I believe I exhibit a reasonable facsimile of live, evidence to a greater or lesser degree that life has originated somewhere. I don’t know how I can prove it’s not just conjecture.

The Fermi paradox has a go at explaining what we think we know

The Fermi Paradox

But I’m not sure what could be done to gather evidence that disproves any of the theories

If contact with alien life had already been established, would it be publicized?

Did the Dogon tribes have ancient knowledge of stars invisible to the naked eye?

Are the pyramids of Egypt and Central America or Stonehenge constructed for accurate celestial alignment?

What gives with Area 51?

Is this legit, or is it bonkers?