aliens what form might they take?

Question

Have you ever thought how narrow minded our view of what aliens look like is?
would it be possible that they could exist in a gaseous state, or maybe so tiny they could only be seen with microscope?
They could have been evolving for billions of years, why do we seem to portray them as similar to ourselves, the chance of that most be none existent

Answer 1

The chances of aliens looking like us is extremely remote. They will have evolved to keep up with the changes to their planets just as we have on ours. Intellectually too they may be ahead of us by million of years. We may appear as pond scum in comparison to them.
On the other hand, they may be pond scum & be here already.

Answer 2

Good question. In fact, I think the most important reason for doing research on extra-terrestrial life is to get an idea of how different life could have evolved here. Or maybe the opposite: we might discover that life is very similar everywhere.

Biochemistry: they could have either L-forms or D-forms of sugars, so there's a 50% chance that life on the other planet would be completely incompatible with ours, i.e. we couldn't digest their food and vice versa. Also, some of their amino acids and vitamins would probably be different from ours so we would probably not be able to survive on ET's diet for long, it might even be toxic to us. And they might use some other metal radical for their hemoglobin, like copper or cobalt instead of iron, making their blood green or blue.

There has been some discussion about the possibility of life to be silicon-based instead of carbon-based. I think silicon based life might exists in very primitive form, but complex life must be carbon-based. And they probably breath oxygen unless their planet is very rich in inorganic energy sources from submarine volcanoes.

They might very well be adapted to much stronger or much weaker air pressure than we are. Then again, humans are quite flexible in terms of air pressure if we get time to acclimatise. The same goes with gravity. They could also be adapted to somewhat stronger UV-light, but their sun must be a star similar to the sun.

They must have evolved in the sea like we did: solid matter has too little turbulence for biochemistry to evolve, and in gas, complex compounds just fall to the ground so it can't get mixed in three dimensions. Could they still be aquatic? Dolphins are quite smart but lack hands and therefore did not evolve into a tool-making species. But octopuses have arms and are also not that dump. Could serve as a model for E.T.

They almost certainly have sex. There are a few higher species (even reptiles) on Earth that procreate through cloning, but a highly social species would quickly succumb to parasites if their were no males around to produce the genetic variation necessary to confuse the parasites. Not sure if they could be hermaphrodites, though. And of course, they might be egg-laying or marsupials.

Maybe insects could serve as a model for E.T. He would probably need lungs and an internal skeleton, but maybe some insect-like creature could develop that.

Answer 3

Well for one thing it is thought that most other planetary environments, other than earth like ones would have virtually no chance of developing sentient life, who is to say maybe the aliens are thinking the same thing we are right now and having the very same debate about life on other worlds. Just a little something to think about.

Answer 4

Your question is about an interesting field of science called "'exobiology". Exobiologists study the possibilities of how life might evolve on other worlds in other conditions, and, if creatures were to visit this planet, what might they be like, based on principles of physics and general laws of the known universe. Scientist are also studying the possibility that viruses found on this planet are actually lifeforms that drifted here in space debris and such from distant worlds.

Answer 5

Our views of aliens are narrow minded because we are human and we have seen little else in the ways of different species (no, that does not mean the billions of animals is too much to see).

Answer 6

Life as we know it on planet Earth is the result of billions upon billions of rolls of the genetic dice. A being from another world would be adapted for that world... if the world was relatively pleasant like it is here on Earth (most of the time) They might look something like us, but they might be utterly different, there is no way to truly know until we meet them.

Answer 7

Be all-encompassing on this one, mate. Aliens could look like boozy Australians on Bondi, hairy Scotsmen in kilts but with no drawers or even Madonna acting her age (God bless her she's great). Let your imagination roam free. We could hazard guesses forever and still not be right. Exobiology...Yuck! Any alien civilisation could be millions of years ahead or behind us. Just think of life changes on earth in the last century and then think of thousands of times longer.

heavenlyhaggis

Answer 8

I personally believe that they look similar to us maybe obeying
some practical natural rules There are others who say that life could exist standing on silicon chemistry and not carbon chemistry like here.That really would make them very different

Answer 9

tREU. Aliens are quite cunty. They do not have a shape or form or image that we may know. They can be gasous or microscopic. Or they could be an energy or a mass. Nobody could find out realistically.

Answer 10

Have a walk around the pubs in the Bigg Market in Newcastle on Saturday night - plenty of them there.