Life in the space, other than the Earth?

Question

I noticed a simillar question was posted 3 days ago, but mine is bit different. I am asking for the possibility of the life in the "whole universe", not just our solar system.

I have very little knowledge on the space study, so I may misuse some words. But I am sure you understand what I try to mean.

As you know, there are many, many galexies out there, which could take some billion light years or more to just get to there. We simply can not travel that far, because our technology has not been developed sophisticated enough.

Based on this fact, I think it is natural to imagine that there must be some lives (not the primitive ones like the becteria, etc.), close to the human. They may not have been evolved good enough just like us right now, but who knows if they are having the middle ages of their own right now.

This is what I think. Do you think, or can you give me a fact that there may be a high leved livings like us out there?

Where do you think they possibly be?

Answer 1

There have been a lot of questions about this recently, and as you stated, there are billions of galaxies out there.
How many we don't know. But certainly enough that it isn't out of the question that a lifeform could evolve out there. Not necessarily humanoid but a lifeform. They may not look anything like humans or for that matter anything we got on earth.
The fact is, everything we know about living things is based on what we have available here on earth.
There is the possibility of a lifeform that doesn't require an oxygen based atmosphere.
We are still in the infancy stage of development in space. If the beings out there are advanced by say 10000 years and have the technology, they could already have been here and are monitoring us as we plod along. Nobody knows for sure.
All we have are guesses and speculation. No hard facts are available.

Answer 2

To get a proper estimate, we would need to have a curve, a sort of trend of the possibility that some events occure. Unfortunatelty, for most of the things that have to be "just right", we have only one point - ours -- to trace the curve.

How many stars have planets? We don't know.
How many of those planets wll be similar to earth? We don't know.
Does life, and intelligent life especially, absolutely require conditions similar to earth to exist? We don't know.
What other special conditions earth went through are necessary for life to develop, and for life to evolve to the point of technologically advanced society? We don't know.

Here is a list of things that could be necessary (but unproven): the presence of a large moon that creates tides. The presence of a large planet like Jupiter to organise the solar system and capture and/or redirect asteroids and comets.

Suppose for a moment that dinosaurs were not wiped out by that giant meteorite 65 millions years ago, and would have survived. Would an intelligent spiece rise from the ranks of dinosaurs? After all, man appeared only a few million years ago; life on this planet was doing pretty well without it until then. Is intelligence just a "lucky" event, or is it unavoidable, given enough time?
And even if it was, suppose intelligent life with a civilisation level comparable to that of middle age on Earth existed on a planet, but got struck by a dinosaur-extinction-sized meteorite, would those beings survive that?
And then, the big question: can any technologically advanced society endure for long? What will happen to us in only a few hundred more years? We know we can wipe ourselves out, through war, disease, etc. so how resilient are we, and how resilient is an hypothetical civilisation on an alien planet?


Putting all those "if" together was done in what is called the Drake Equation. (See the link for more info) Most of the terms of the eqaution have no very good estimates fr now; but as we explore the univers with telescope and discover planets, some of those get a bit more firmed up.


In the end, there is a very good chance that we are not alone in the universe. But the closest neighbour may be horribly far.

Answer 3

Statistically you must be right. There must be multiple planets in this vast universe that have conditions that could host life as we know it. If you define life as capable of reproducing, using food for energy and growth, exchanging gases, releasing wastes then we must be prepared for forms we can not easily relate to. Will this alien form be carbon based? Use DNA, be cellular in nature?
Intelligent forms are another thing. I can't believe we are alone and I always remember that "absence of proof is not proof of absence". Keep thinking and asking.

Answer 4

until we have proof it doesn't exist ( no other way to state it if you want to stick to science )

the argument that space is so vast that there must be life is no more valid than saying that there must be native kangaroos in Africa because it is bigger than Australia

there is no reason that the life on Earth cannot be the only life in existence - in fact since it had to start somewhere it is a valid scientific argument based on current knowledge ( maybe we truly are the 'cradle of life ' )