do you think there are other inhabited planets in the universe besides earth?

Answer 1

possibly, ive also had occasion to ponder the possiblity of habitation (if not now, at one time) of places severly neglected within our earth.

Answer 2

I believe it's possible that there is life on other planets in the universe. Possibly even within our own galaxy, though we have to remember that the Milky Way is a rather mundane and uninteresting galaxy as far as the population of the universe goes. In his series "Cosmos", Carl Sagon once showed an equation where he showed that in our galaxy, the chances of an inhabited world of comporable technological levels capable of recieving and transmitting radio signals to be less than 100. But multiply that by all the galaxies in the universe, and the odds become much better that there are a host of inhabited planets.

The challenge to us is recognizing that life may exist in forms that we can't easily recognize as such. I doubt there are many (if any) other planets out there that are approximately 93 million miles from a yellow star that has a surface area that is over 75% water and with an atmosphere with just the right mixture of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Other life forms will have evolved to take advantage of the specific chemical composition of their home worlds and so will likely be something other than carbon-based.

The other challenge is, even if there is other life out there, the vast distances in space makes communication and contact extremely difficult. The nearest star that scientists believe could have an earth-like planet (meaning a rocky planet as opposed to a gas planet like Jupiter) is something like 70 light years away I think. I could be wrong on the distance, but I'm pretty certain on that number. So if it takes light almost three-quaters of a century to travel from there to here, imagine how long of a journey that would be under methods available to us now.

That's why, even though I believe there is life elsewhere in the universe, I doubt that we have ever been visited here on earth.

Answer 3

I rather like the "Pan Spermia Theory".
That a form of life has been travelling around the universe for a very long time. When conditions are favourable this form will evolve into appropiate forms for the available conditions.
There are two discoveries that in my mind lean towards this idea.

Anarobic bacteria that were discovered deep in the earth's crust. they don't need oxygen sun etc just minerals. They could be anywhere on any inhospitable planet (well, there would be limits). Aparently similiar bacteria found in a meteorite that had originated on Mars.

The inference I am making here is that all life may have evolved from these bacteria, that they arrived on earth as it was forming and as conditions suited they evolved into us.
On Mars this may not have occured and maybe they are still there as they are here but with no terrestial style descendants.

i draw your attention to the fact that recent experiments and plans to experiment involve deep penetrations of Mars and that comet etc. I suspect one of the agendas is to see if something like the anarobic bacteria is present.

If the panspermia theory is true then any other life would be related to us.

Answer 4

Yes. Based on the probabilities and attempts to calculate the odds there may be between 50 and 0.0000008 civilizations in our local Galaxy with which we might reasonably expect to be able to communicate at any given time. If you expand the parameters and include all other Galaxies in the universe the number is in the hundreds of thousands. Admittedly they may never be able to communicate with us in any individuals life-span simply because our lives are so short and the distances between us and any other civilization may be so great that we will have all turned to cosmic dust by the time that either of us is able to detect the other civilization - but there are so many stars and such a huge universe that the probability that they are out there is more certain than both death and taxes.

Answer 5

Well odds would dictate yes, except you'll get a bunch of Christers saying no based on essentially make-believe evidence.

However, I think probably yes, though Ray Kurzweil made a good argument of why they haven't "visited" us yet, if that is really so, etc


The problem is that there are lot of planets, and a very slim chance of life on each - multiplying the two is like taking infinity times zero, which can give any number, including 1 (us!).

Answer 6

I'd have to say yes. The universe is just too big for life to have only happened here.

But I have no good speculation as to what other forms of life would be like. We are kinda on the outskirts of our galaxy, and most of the stars in our galaxy are closer to the center, where the galaxy is more dense and and far taller. So maybe they already have a complex interplanetary culture going on, and we are the galactic bumkins on the outside that they don't really care about yet because we are far behind on the developmental stage. Who knows?

Answer 7

Very broad open question with mutilple possible meanings.
Inhabited by what? Algae, or intelligent organisms? Either way, the probability is so stupendously high to both questions that I think we can say with certainty that other planets are inhabited.
A really good book to read on this and similar issues is "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.

Answer 8

A calculation was done (.. I'm not sure who is was..) that used probability equations estimating the number of planets in our galaxy alone that contained intelligent life. It was 50,000. Now multiply this number by the number of galaxies containing sufficient amounts of heavier elements (such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, etc) and it's a staggering number.

We probably will never see or hear from them as the distances are way too vast.

Answer 9

Yes, there is. our planet earth and eight planets live in a milky way, and there is Andromeda galaxy was spotted before as it is also a milkyway.

There will be others planets in other milkyway, and other civilization may exist out there.

Answer 10

The probability of there NOT being any is near zero. The type of "inhabitants" may vary greatly.

Answer 11

Of course. Earth is one planet in one galaxy of an endless universe of galaxies. We are not alone.