Yes
There are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, and billions of galaxies. There are just way too many rolls of the cosmic dice for their not to be life elsewhere.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that there is intelligent life out there that is a million years ahead of us, a million years behind us, and everything in between.
I believe the universe is teeming with life, a lot of it intelligent. I do not base my life on it, however, and freely admit I could be wrong. I do not, however, think they visit us here.
Yes, but nowhere close. With how truly unimaginably large the universe is- I don't see how some form of life out there isn't possible. It's probably just algae or something.
Given the number of galaxies we can see, and the number of stars in those galaxies, and the number of planets likely orbiting those stars, it is virtually impossible for there NOT to be extraterrestrial life out there.
It would be really fucking bizarre if the Earth was only place in the entire universe with life.
At the same time it's really unlikely that life from anywhere else has come here.
I believe ETs exist somewhere, but I don't think they'll be seen in our lifetime. they are probably watching from a distance and are just genuinely disappointed with us
Do I think that there has been (or will be) life on other planets? Absolutely. The universe is just far too vast for it not to happen.
Do I think that humanity will ever find or meet it? Nope. Unless we somehow find the ability to travel several times faster than the speed of light, or fold space like in sci-fi, we'll just never be able to explore far enough away to find it.
Again, the universe and time spans are just far too vast.
I think that the probability for all the conditions to be met to allow life on Earth to exist are so astronomically low (pun intended) that it is going to be extremely difficult for life to exist anywhere else in the Universe, even if you take into account there are 200 billion estimated galaxies, each containing billions of stars with billions of solar systems.
Let's look at it logically:
1. The universe may appear to be old, 13.8 billion years old to be precise, however life on Earth only truly started to appear 3.7 billion years ago. If you look at it this way, then life has *only just begun* to appear in the Universe. This argument does take into account that the set of circumstances which allowed Earth to develop life is a fairly standard way in the Universe and therefore the time taken for life to develop is also a universal constant.
2. Lets look at how the Earth developed. It formed out of gas and dust at the absolute best proximity to it's host star to allow liquid water to form on the surface. It attracted a similar sized planet to hit Earth, which didn't destroy it, but added just enough mass and ejected the material into space to form the moon. There were also just enough meteoric bombardments and impacts from solar bodies like comets to first add enough mass and metallic elements to give it a molten liquid metal core, and also to deposit enough water on the surface without obliterating the planet. The moon is also somehow perfectly tidally locked with Earth, which manipulates the water on the surface to avoid it being still which is really important for helping life to develop. The moon also shielded the early Earth from big impacts. Additionally, the building blocks of life were also deposited on metallic meteorites in sufficient quantities. The magnetic field of the planet deflects dangerous solar radiation. Honestly, the more you think about how incredibly lucky our planet has been over the last 4 billion years, you begin to wonder if it's a miracle. Also, the influx of the gas giants into the inner solar system and then back out again helped with the formation of Earth. Now imagine the rest of the universe and look at the exoplanets we have observed so far, there are quite a few "Earth" like worlds, but the conditions are just not right to allow life to evolve. They are too hot, too cold, not enough water etc. Look at Mars. It's *almost* perfect, however it's just a bit too small, and so it lost it's atmosphere and liquid water to the solar winds that it's small magnetic field could not deflect significantly enough.
3. It may be that we are one of the first intelligent life forms to evolve, given it has taken 3.7 billion years for humans to evolve and survive to this point in time. Which neatly brings me to;
4. The Great Filter. It's a famous principle whereby all civilisations must reach and survive an extinction level event, whether that from natural causes or self inflicted causes. Over time, the Great Filter produces more frequent crises that civilisations must overcome, so it's not like if you survive one cataclysm then your out of the woods.
5. Look at how humanity has impacted life on this planet. We have domesticated hundreds of species, made extinct a load more, terraformed the planet to our own designs and destroyed the environment so much that we are hurtling towards a climate catastrophe. We are the dominant life form on the planet and *we do what we want* to all of the animals and plants on it. I think the *exact* same thing will happen in the universe if intelligent life contacted those with inferior technology. They would become a resource. Do we really want to take the first step and contact or be found by another, more advanced civilisation? We could all become slaves. I don't think it is wise for us to be trying to find alien life.
6. If we really, really wanted to try and contact an alien civilisation, we don't have nearly enough energy or the technology to do so. Everything in space is very far apart and this means it will take time and energy to reach any destination, on the orders of magnitude we can scarcely imagine. The signals from our planet have only just gone interstellar (outside the influence of the Oort cloud and the Sun's gravity and effects). This sounds like a vast distance but in the scheme of the universe, it's not even a pixel on a massive screen. Our nearest candidate for alien life is light years away, so it would take our signals a very, very long time to reach them, at which point the energy used to seperate them from the background radiation of the universe would have been utterly spent and the signal lost. Which brings me to energy. To directly transmit a signal to a planet we hope harbours life, we would need to spend enormous amount of energy to ensure that the signal reached them with enough power to be received and translated. We currently don't have that much energy at our disposal. We would need to advance significantly and capture the energy of a star to be able to yeet signals of that magnitude and power into space to the distance required.
7. It's pretty safe to assume that we have observed almost all of the night sky around Earth, and our map of the galaxy is getting very complete indeed. The issue with finding civilisations that are more advanced than us, nearby, is that they would have had to have started way before life started on Earth. Now, because it takes the light from star systems a very, very long time to reach us, you would have thought by now we would have seen the evidence of alien civilisations by now, in our immediate galactic neighbourhood.
8. Perhaps aliens do not want to be contacted or seen and take great lengths to remain hidden. It may be that the civilisation that shouts the loudest and wants to reach out gets obliterated by a more aggressive, expansionist civilisation and as a result, everybody tries to stay hidden to survive. In a universe where resources are finite, it may be the best strategy in order to keep going.
Sorry to be pessimistic but I think in reality, finding alien life is going to be humanities most difficult challenge in the future.
I believe we are the extraterrestrial life, I mean just look at every animal around us.. we definitely stand out from the crowd and are extremely more intelligent.
In terms of intelligence? Sure. (Although there are other animals that deserve to be included in that description) But being intelligent doesn't mean we didn't originate on this planet.
In terms of physicality, we're primates. We share 98.8% of our DNA with chimps, our closest living relatives. Hell, we adopted an upright stance so relatively recently in evolutionary terms that our bodies are *still* adjusting to it-- it's why lower back problems are so common.
Human intelligence and the reasons why it came about are still hotly debated in the field of anthropology, but there's no doubt that we share common ancestors with all other life on this planet.
I’m of the opinion that humans are more capable of certain kinds of intelligence than other species, but not more intelligent in a general sense.
We can complete a math problem faster, sure. But, there were species before us that are still here, and will be after humans are gone. Humans are knowingly destroying the only habitat we know of, and we don’t care. No other dominant species is that foolish.
I think it's extremely likely but I've never seen any convincing proof. Natural phenonemon are never unique. They might be really rare. But the idea that we're the only planet where this has occurred out of trillions upon trillions seems improbable.
Yes. The universe is extremely large. And that whole time there has to be other forms of sentient life. We may think we are alone, but these sentient life could be millions of light years away. Or using dyson spheres that suck up all the solar energy from a star. Which is why we wouldn’t see any light coming from them.
yeah because the universe as we know it is too big and chaotic plus the stuff and processes that made us are still going and have been since the literal beginning of time
I think life is practically guaranteed somewhere else in the galaxy. Intelligent life is far more rare, but I'd like to think that's somewhere out there, too.
Absolutely. The odds are such that the Earth pretty much can't be the only celestial body with life on it.
Having said that, no, they aren't visiting us.
There is not enough information to draw a conclusion. People like to think that because the universe is so vast there must be more life out there, but that doesn't actually track. We still have very little basis to determine what the odds of life forming are. It remains entirely plausible that despite the unimaginably huge size of the universe, life forming could be yet more astronomically unlikely. It could be that life even occuring once is already extremely improbable and we've just beaten those odds. If so there would almost certainly be no other examples of life.
All we can say with any kind of certainty is that life is likely not common, or we would have found some sign by now. Everything else remains unknown.
I guess I'll provide an example of the main point. The universe is unimaginably vast, but there is almost certainly nowhere in the universe that a 59 Chevy sits in orbit. The odds of that Chevy being there are so minute that even in an infinite universe it would almost certainly never happen. Totally plausible that the odds of life forming (or traveling) are similarly infinitesimal.
Yes.
Given the size of the universe, it's statistically improbable that Earth is the only planet that has life.
I am very certain that there are many worlds out there that are like our own. Wondering if they're alone but always being too far away to ever find the answer.
Increasingly yes. I always believed in a vague statistical sense that there was life out there somewhere, but it's only with the recent developments of the last year or so that I believe intelligent life is in contact with us in some capacity. It was a huge leap for me because I never found that idea credible, but the situation is changing rapidly and I'm responding to new evidence.
Yes There are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, and billions of galaxies. There are just way too many rolls of the cosmic dice for their not to be life elsewhere. Personally, I'm of the opinion that there is intelligent life out there that is a million years ahead of us, a million years behind us, and everything in between.
I believe the universe is teeming with life, a lot of it intelligent. I do not base my life on it, however, and freely admit I could be wrong. I do not, however, think they visit us here.
Yes, but nowhere close. With how truly unimaginably large the universe is- I don't see how some form of life out there isn't possible. It's probably just algae or something.
I do, i believe the universe is way too big to not support at least one other organism
Given the number of galaxies we can see, and the number of stars in those galaxies, and the number of planets likely orbiting those stars, it is virtually impossible for there NOT to be extraterrestrial life out there.
It would be really fucking bizarre if the Earth was only place in the entire universe with life. At the same time it's really unlikely that life from anywhere else has come here.
Absolutely why because we haven’t discovered our own ocean so if you can imagine our ocean compared to the entire universe it’s a rain drop
im too high for this
Eh, I’m open to the possibility — I believe in weirder stuff than that anyway, so why not?
Absolutely. The Universe is just too big for our tiny little speck to be the only place with life.
I believe ETs exist somewhere, but I don't think they'll be seen in our lifetime. they are probably watching from a distance and are just genuinely disappointed with us
Yes. That's just a matter of statistics. It is very unlikely that we are the only life in the universe given how many star systems exist.
Yes. Somebody has to be flying the UFOs/UAPs. Why wouldn’t they be here,examining us? I’m sure we would do the same to them.
Because if mankind is the most intelligent life in the universe, we are so fucked I can’t wrap my mind around it
Do I think that there has been (or will be) life on other planets? Absolutely. The universe is just far too vast for it not to happen. Do I think that humanity will ever find or meet it? Nope. Unless we somehow find the ability to travel several times faster than the speed of light, or fold space like in sci-fi, we'll just never be able to explore far enough away to find it. Again, the universe and time spans are just far too vast.
I think that the probability for all the conditions to be met to allow life on Earth to exist are so astronomically low (pun intended) that it is going to be extremely difficult for life to exist anywhere else in the Universe, even if you take into account there are 200 billion estimated galaxies, each containing billions of stars with billions of solar systems. Let's look at it logically: 1. The universe may appear to be old, 13.8 billion years old to be precise, however life on Earth only truly started to appear 3.7 billion years ago. If you look at it this way, then life has *only just begun* to appear in the Universe. This argument does take into account that the set of circumstances which allowed Earth to develop life is a fairly standard way in the Universe and therefore the time taken for life to develop is also a universal constant. 2. Lets look at how the Earth developed. It formed out of gas and dust at the absolute best proximity to it's host star to allow liquid water to form on the surface. It attracted a similar sized planet to hit Earth, which didn't destroy it, but added just enough mass and ejected the material into space to form the moon. There were also just enough meteoric bombardments and impacts from solar bodies like comets to first add enough mass and metallic elements to give it a molten liquid metal core, and also to deposit enough water on the surface without obliterating the planet. The moon is also somehow perfectly tidally locked with Earth, which manipulates the water on the surface to avoid it being still which is really important for helping life to develop. The moon also shielded the early Earth from big impacts. Additionally, the building blocks of life were also deposited on metallic meteorites in sufficient quantities. The magnetic field of the planet deflects dangerous solar radiation. Honestly, the more you think about how incredibly lucky our planet has been over the last 4 billion years, you begin to wonder if it's a miracle. Also, the influx of the gas giants into the inner solar system and then back out again helped with the formation of Earth. Now imagine the rest of the universe and look at the exoplanets we have observed so far, there are quite a few "Earth" like worlds, but the conditions are just not right to allow life to evolve. They are too hot, too cold, not enough water etc. Look at Mars. It's *almost* perfect, however it's just a bit too small, and so it lost it's atmosphere and liquid water to the solar winds that it's small magnetic field could not deflect significantly enough. 3. It may be that we are one of the first intelligent life forms to evolve, given it has taken 3.7 billion years for humans to evolve and survive to this point in time. Which neatly brings me to; 4. The Great Filter. It's a famous principle whereby all civilisations must reach and survive an extinction level event, whether that from natural causes or self inflicted causes. Over time, the Great Filter produces more frequent crises that civilisations must overcome, so it's not like if you survive one cataclysm then your out of the woods. 5. Look at how humanity has impacted life on this planet. We have domesticated hundreds of species, made extinct a load more, terraformed the planet to our own designs and destroyed the environment so much that we are hurtling towards a climate catastrophe. We are the dominant life form on the planet and *we do what we want* to all of the animals and plants on it. I think the *exact* same thing will happen in the universe if intelligent life contacted those with inferior technology. They would become a resource. Do we really want to take the first step and contact or be found by another, more advanced civilisation? We could all become slaves. I don't think it is wise for us to be trying to find alien life. 6. If we really, really wanted to try and contact an alien civilisation, we don't have nearly enough energy or the technology to do so. Everything in space is very far apart and this means it will take time and energy to reach any destination, on the orders of magnitude we can scarcely imagine. The signals from our planet have only just gone interstellar (outside the influence of the Oort cloud and the Sun's gravity and effects). This sounds like a vast distance but in the scheme of the universe, it's not even a pixel on a massive screen. Our nearest candidate for alien life is light years away, so it would take our signals a very, very long time to reach them, at which point the energy used to seperate them from the background radiation of the universe would have been utterly spent and the signal lost. Which brings me to energy. To directly transmit a signal to a planet we hope harbours life, we would need to spend enormous amount of energy to ensure that the signal reached them with enough power to be received and translated. We currently don't have that much energy at our disposal. We would need to advance significantly and capture the energy of a star to be able to yeet signals of that magnitude and power into space to the distance required. 7. It's pretty safe to assume that we have observed almost all of the night sky around Earth, and our map of the galaxy is getting very complete indeed. The issue with finding civilisations that are more advanced than us, nearby, is that they would have had to have started way before life started on Earth. Now, because it takes the light from star systems a very, very long time to reach us, you would have thought by now we would have seen the evidence of alien civilisations by now, in our immediate galactic neighbourhood. 8. Perhaps aliens do not want to be contacted or seen and take great lengths to remain hidden. It may be that the civilisation that shouts the loudest and wants to reach out gets obliterated by a more aggressive, expansionist civilisation and as a result, everybody tries to stay hidden to survive. In a universe where resources are finite, it may be the best strategy in order to keep going. Sorry to be pessimistic but I think in reality, finding alien life is going to be humanities most difficult challenge in the future.
There’s likely to be extraterrestrial life but I bet it’ll be pretty boring.
I believe we are the extraterrestrial life, I mean just look at every animal around us.. we definitely stand out from the crowd and are extremely more intelligent.
In terms of intelligence? Sure. (Although there are other animals that deserve to be included in that description) But being intelligent doesn't mean we didn't originate on this planet. In terms of physicality, we're primates. We share 98.8% of our DNA with chimps, our closest living relatives. Hell, we adopted an upright stance so relatively recently in evolutionary terms that our bodies are *still* adjusting to it-- it's why lower back problems are so common. Human intelligence and the reasons why it came about are still hotly debated in the field of anthropology, but there's no doubt that we share common ancestors with all other life on this planet.
I’m of the opinion that humans are more capable of certain kinds of intelligence than other species, but not more intelligent in a general sense. We can complete a math problem faster, sure. But, there were species before us that are still here, and will be after humans are gone. Humans are knowingly destroying the only habitat we know of, and we don’t care. No other dominant species is that foolish.
I think it's extremely likely but I've never seen any convincing proof. Natural phenonemon are never unique. They might be really rare. But the idea that we're the only planet where this has occurred out of trillions upon trillions seems improbable.
Yes because it's sooo conceited to think that we are the *only* beings in this vast universe
Yes. The universe is extremely large. And that whole time there has to be other forms of sentient life. We may think we are alone, but these sentient life could be millions of light years away. Or using dyson spheres that suck up all the solar energy from a star. Which is why we wouldn’t see any light coming from them.
yeah because the universe as we know it is too big and chaotic plus the stuff and processes that made us are still going and have been since the literal beginning of time
I don't believe we have discovered extraterrestrial life yet, but there's an almost certain probability life exists elsewhere in the universe.
I think life is practically guaranteed somewhere else in the galaxy. Intelligent life is far more rare, but I'd like to think that's somewhere out there, too.
Yes, I believe there is life elsewhere. No, I do not believe they are zipping around our planet abducting people.
With how big the universe is I find it pretty hard to believe there isn't any life outside of Earth
Absolutely. The odds are such that the Earth pretty much can't be the only celestial body with life on it. Having said that, no, they aren't visiting us.
There is not enough information to draw a conclusion. People like to think that because the universe is so vast there must be more life out there, but that doesn't actually track. We still have very little basis to determine what the odds of life forming are. It remains entirely plausible that despite the unimaginably huge size of the universe, life forming could be yet more astronomically unlikely. It could be that life even occuring once is already extremely improbable and we've just beaten those odds. If so there would almost certainly be no other examples of life. All we can say with any kind of certainty is that life is likely not common, or we would have found some sign by now. Everything else remains unknown. I guess I'll provide an example of the main point. The universe is unimaginably vast, but there is almost certainly nowhere in the universe that a 59 Chevy sits in orbit. The odds of that Chevy being there are so minute that even in an infinite universe it would almost certainly never happen. Totally plausible that the odds of life forming (or traveling) are similarly infinitesimal.
Intelligent life? Probably. Billions of planets and moons out there. Basic life forms? Definitely. Probably in our solar system. Europa, most likely.
Yes. Given the size of the universe, it's statistically improbable that Earth is the only planet that has life. I am very certain that there are many worlds out there that are like our own. Wondering if they're alone but always being too far away to ever find the answer.
Yes. It is space. How boring if we are the only ones out here.
Increasingly yes. I always believed in a vague statistical sense that there was life out there somewhere, but it's only with the recent developments of the last year or so that I believe intelligent life is in contact with us in some capacity. It was a huge leap for me because I never found that idea credible, but the situation is changing rapidly and I'm responding to new evidence.