What are the odds of life exsisting outside our solar system?

Question

If there are a million billion (ish)stars in our galaxy and there is a million billion (ish) galaxies in the known universe the possibility that our planet is the only one that can support life has got to be pretty remote.

Answer 1

There is definitely life elsewhere in the universe and certainly our galaxy. There are that many stars and planets round them that the conditions for life to emerge must exist. Just look at the numbers involved. It is worth noting that life took a hold on Earth immediately as soon as conditions allowed. Life seems to be the eventual emergent property of complex chemical reactions. The only remaining thing is to actually detect it on other worlds, or even be visited by an alien species, but the distances between the stars and the limitation of the speed of light would be a massive burden to overcome. However, if you think about how technology on Earth has quickly advanced in only 50 years, imagine the capabilities of a species hundreds of years older than ours. If indeed they embrace technology like we do. Would they view us as just another primitive race and observe from a distance? Or, in their wisdom, chance making contact and maybe upset our natural evolution. Who knows. But what if they are watching, as we watch nature programs about apes on TV?

Answer 2

With all of the elements that make life on Earth readily available in the universe, it is hard to believe that life cannot exist elsewhere.

Be it a single celled animal, or a complex multi-celled being capable of thought and analysis - or even a plant.....there must be life elsewhere, even if on the other side of the universe.

For now we don't know. We only began dabbling in radio waves this past couple of centuries, at the most!

Taking that into consideration our first transmissions are only 100 light years out of our solar system, with the closest stars being Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri at about 4.3 light years away as well as Wolf 359 and Barnard's Star at 6.0 and 7.2 light years away with no response, and the other side of our own galaxy at 100,000 light years away - there just may be a different kind of human that evolves before we find out.

Basically we made a lot of interesting invitations for other worlds supporting intellegence to explore the source of our radio output, but as of yet we have no response.

Check out Drake's Equation.

Answer 3

Chances are, at one point there was a comet or something containing amino acids or DNA or something... it would have transported these to another planet, or to here from another planet. So although the probability of life appearing independently on two different planets is about one in 10^2000 (10^2000 is a 1 followed by 2000 zeros.), it's probably fairly likely that once it was created something was transported somewhere else, and that there is life outside the solar system

Answer 4

Pretty good. I'd be astonished if there wasn't.

If you have the right chemistry and add some energy, the chemical reactions that occur always go in the direction of life forms. Not just in laboratories, but also in deep space. While it's a long way from amino acids and interesting organic compounds to actual life, the universe is large, and patient.

Answer 5

there are TONS of stars out there that could hold the ability to allow life to flourish and if we look at just the amount of stars out there, then the odds look VERY good that there is life.

BUT

if we look at the odds we've crossed looking for life in our own solar system and in "nearby" exoplanets, then the odds look very bleak.

its confusing to look at the odds from different angles and is one of the MAJOR reasons we continue with our space exploration.

I tend to agree with you though and figure the odds sit around 1 in a million, but when your talking about a 1 billion stars then there is a chance that 1000 of those stars might have life.

if your talking about a million billion (ish) then you have a million (ish) times 1000... wow thats big

Huge numbers can create large numbers when even looking at just small percentages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

Answer 6

Unless we were to find a planet with the perfect type of sun, a perfect size, with the right rotation and tilt, with a perfect moon in a perfect rotation around that earth,at just the right distance from that sun, with enough carbon on that earth, an atmosphere that protects us against radiation and other solar activity from that perfect sun, a magnetic field to protect us against magnetic storms, a "protector planet" to keep larger meteors and other space junk from hitting it (either Saturn or Jupiter is ours), and a lot of water that hopefully hasn't vanished "long ago", then I think we are out o' luck.

Answer 7

I would say pretty good,

Why would we be the only life bearing planet in the universe, when there are so many others that are capable of sustaining life.

Answer 8

The odds that life doesn't exist outside the solar system is virtually zero.

Answer 9

i might might desire to declare that for the time of step with lots of study that's extremely probably that there is clever existence outdoors of our image voltaic gadget, in all probability greater clever than us. i exchange into looking at this documentary on the invention channel a whilst back a pair of area craft got here across at the instant. It exchange into staggering. needless to say by utilizing purely finding at it I knew it wasn't some thing shall we've created. i exchange into purely particularly shocked that the government particularly allowed that documentary to be launched on national television. They confirmed you the completed outdoors and an mind-blowing style of of the interior and confirmed us the innovations they have been utilizing to attempt and choose how the darn ingredient worked. nicely, they found out by utilizing twist of destiny that it had a cloaking device (invisibility preserve) by utilizing turning it on. of direction it did no longer pass completely invisible, it purely mixed in with the history (what exchange into in the back of it) so as that from some sort of a distance it would be particularly no longer trouble-free to tell that it exchange into there. besides, do a sprint prognosis and use your person judgement. As for me, the universe is far too extensive and massive for it to in basic terms be constrained to us. I nevertheless have self belief in God, yet i do no longer think of we are the only beings he created.

Answer 10

scientists recon that if space goes on for ever.....not only is there life.... there would be people speaking English. lets face it the chance of that would be billions to one......but that would be a drop in the ocean if space is never ending