how far away is it. or how long will it take to reach there with current technology?
2006-10-12 02:55:00 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
The odds of intelligent life happening to be both currently alive (an not extinct by some means) and anywhere close enough for us to detect with even future technology seems pretty remote.
By some basic numbers
300 billion stars in our Galaxy
Assume half are old enough to have formed in the metal rich clouds to have life sustaining chemical reactions 150 billion
Assume half of these may have planets capable of supporting life 75 billion
Assume further that half of these worlds actually have life on them currently (it is relatively easy to generate mass extinction scenarios) 37.5 billion
Assume these life forms live on land and not in water (most life on earth is aquatic, and will never develop beyond most rudimentary technology without fire) Say 10% of previous number or 3.7 billion planets
Sounds promising so far?
Assume the collosal odds of evolution, chance, mass extinction survival, sufficient material wealth, species adaption to develop
technology. 1% of 3.7 billion or 37 million civilizations
Assume life expectancy of an average technological society at 1 million years? Why? just because. Humans have managed about 10 000 years, call me an optimist and we last for 1 million
Now how many technological civilizations are currently in the galaxy? If they have existed on and off for roughly half the age of the galaxy (7 billion years) 7 billion years divided by 37 million civilizations or 189 currently existing technological societies
Now what is the average distance between them?
Imagine the galaxy is a circlular disc (it is not) approximately 300 000 light years across and sprinkle our 189 technological civilizations more or less evenly around it.
I come up with a ball park estimate of 1 civilization per 375 million "square" light years, or put another way, each technological alien civilization is no closer than 20 thousand light years.
These numbers are far from scientific, but give an indication how rare extraterrestrial life is even to optimists like me.
But even if there is an ET civilization 20 000 ly distant, you would think that their radio signals would have reached us by now, again assuming they survive a million years.
If humanity survives a million years, we would be lucky to meet one!
with current technology it would take hundreds of thousands of years for us to deliver a ship that far.
Non technological life and non intelligent life are probably fairly common, with stars like Epsilon Eridani (10 light years) showing nominal promise.
More likely, it will be up to us to populate the galaxy with intelligent life. Something we seem to be in short supply on earth, but perhaps the AI's we develop in the coming decades will become our ambassadors...
2006-10-12 06:12:38 · answer #1 · answered by aka DarthDad 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
o my god, people. I'm sorry, buddy, but these answers don't seem to be helping you. Here's the run-down: Alpha Centauri is the closest star to Earth. Any solar system has the possibility of yielding life, but seeking intelligence is another story. Hell, 1/4 people on Earth are retarded....
Anyways, more stars than grains of sand, etc etc etc.... So let's say there are only 1 trillion stars, all similar in revolving bodies such as our solar system (meaning they all yield 9 planets). So that's 9 trillion planets. But lets say that each planet yields 10 moons (look into it... even though Earth only has one moon, most planets we know of have a LOT more...). So, that's 90 trillion possibilities for life.
Check out this little educational video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyGWftwf4zA
2006-10-12 03:41:58 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy. The chances that another intelligent species is within a thousand light years is slim to none. Another race could rise, develop powerful enough radio signals to reach us and then go extinct before those radio signals even get here. It will take us surviving our own planetary infancy and getting out beyound our own system before we even have a slim chance of contacting someone else.
2006-10-12 03:28:16 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Star are big gas explosion balls in space and cannot support life. When you look up in the sky you see all these stars. Planets which may support life under the right conditions, can't really be seen unless light is shine on them. Either way there are some places in our own solar system that may have some kind of life. there are moons near Jupiter that may have water, etc. that may suport life...so that;s our best bet for right now.
2006-10-12 03:04:24 · answer #4 · answered by nor2006 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No stars have intelligent life. It's too hot to live on a star. Another planet might have intelligent life though. We haven't found one yet but we are looking.
2006-10-12 03:19:32 · answer #5 · answered by Krissy 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I doubt any nearby stars have intelligent life.
2006-10-12 02:58:30 · answer #6 · answered by Vanguard 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
The SUN is a star...go figure
2006-10-12 05:06:32 · answer #7 · answered by Retro 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋