Why can't we find life on another planet?

Question

All that space out there. Is earth the only place in the universe that can sustain life?

Answer 1

With all of the advances made in space technology in the last 100 years, it becomes very easy to forget that we humans are still in the infancy of discoveries about the Universe and what it contains.

We are at a stage when persons want all of the answers right now and they simply do not exist yet.

Over 200 extrasolar planets have been discovered since 1988. Technological advances should make detection easier as time goes by. As is the case within our Solar System, not all planets are capable of sustaining life. Even a smaller percent of those would supposedly harbor intelligent life.

Answer 2

Well, it is essentially a question of economy.

One can quite decently estimate the technological effort necessary to detect the signals of life on extrasolar planets. And the short answer is that there would be no science budget in the world large enough to set off a grand project which would have any chances of success.

Fifty years from now things will have change, technology will have advanced and our idea of what we need to be looking for will be refined. Consequently one can expect that there will be attempts at finding extraterrestrial life.

No big deal. Science can wait another 40 or 50 years.

Answer 3

The closest planet to our own is about 20 light years away. That means if we start broadcasting radio signals to that planet, we wouldnt get a response for 40 years! (IF it has intelligent life) If we had our fastest space craft aim for that planet, they wouldnt arrive for a thousand years!

Space is BIG!

It is very likely, almost certain, that there is other life out there. But going from life to intelligent life that can communicate with large radio antennas is a big step.

I dont know of any good website which really attempts to sum up the scale of this problem, maybe you can find something with the help of google, but basically the galaxy is so big that even with a million intelligent human-like civilizations, we still would probably not be able to find one at this point in time!

Answer 4

Its simple. Because we aren't smart enough and do not have the necessary tools to do so. Scientists have discovered other "planets" that may sustain a form of life but are unable to prove that life exists on those planets. They are not in our solar system and are many light years away. If you wanna know more check out this source.

Answer 5

i could say there's a ninety 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999... risk that the respond is a large particular. do you be responsive to how many galaxies there are. Billions. each and every with Trillions of stars able to having planets. And the percentages are very reliable that a number of the planets are interior the "Goldilocks" zone of their celeb. So particular I do think of that they are is existence on yet another planet. We basically have not got here across it or it hasn't got here across us yet.

Answer 6

The options, the options the options. Well, it is quite possible that other life has actually contacted us. Though the government keeps it secret due to the fact that we even have a law here in America forbidding us from having any contact with "aliens" from another planet. I would think that we definitely came into contact with them around the 50s because it was about then that we had a sudden surge of technology advancements that have been happening continuously since then.

But it is all in theory that we try to answer this question due to the fact that as of yet we havn't been able to discover how to travel faster than the speed of light...which would be nice to travel at 5x's the speed of light. Just think being able to travel somewhere in 8 years that is well over 40 light years away. Imagine how many things we would discover along the way?

Answer 7

Just because a planet could sustain life it does not mean that it has life. We just don't yet have the means to search for life in other planets. I find it impossible though that there aren't other planets with life as we know it or even life as we don't know yet.
But then we could find life or intelligent life or intelligent life more advanced than ours, or even intelligent life less advanced than ours.

Answer 8

Well, the main way that we're looking is through radio signals, which travel at the comparatively slow speed of light. Because of that, many of the signals we recieve are millions and billions of years old! We've only been transmitting signals that could possibly be detected by alien life for the last fifty or sixty years. They can't possibly have heard us yet, and unless they were sending out those kinds of signals that long ago, there's no reason we might hear them.

Answer 9

One problem is that we may not actually know what to look for. The definition of what constitutes life are still not clear cut. If it breathes, consumes fuel (eats), and reproduces is considered to be the pre requisites for life, however, fire requires air, fuel, and spreads. so it at a stretch you could claim fire is alive. The traces left by life may be minimal, and different to what we may expect. There's an argument that the Viking probes to Mars may have detected traces of life, but the readings were mis-read.
Recent discoveries of microbial life in hot springs and in deep water vents where the water is boiling and acidic.

Answer 10

Earth is the only planet that holds oxygen and all of the other planets are wide-open to space so it doesn't hold anything other than rocks and dust.