Is there life outside our planet earth?

Answer 1

That's a great question. Basically the answer to whether there is life in the universe is always a good one.

Is there life in the universe, absolutely, the trillions of stars in the billions of known galaxies harbor a tremendous number of planets, it's certainly the case that somewhere else advanced civilizations have taken to the stars, but the universe being as fast as it is, we may never contact them.

(see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7FVjATcqvc)

To answer your question, It's huglely probable that there other civilizations in this galaxy. The reasons is simple but you have to put up with some math and some history.

Back in the 60's some scientists asked the very same question, and came out with a basic formula that figures that out.

The main idea was fleshed out by a scientist named Frank Drake, he basically put some of the parts of the question together differently and assigned a likelyhood/probability to each.

Drake asked the question this way, what was the likelyhood of us communicating with another technically advanced civilization. Since that question breaks down, into parts that we can discover by looking around the universe, over time , we will be able to make a very good guestimate of how many civilizations are out there.

For instance one "factor" in his equasion was "the likelyhood of a sunlike star"

Another "factor" was "The likelyhood of a sunlike star with planets like Earth" - this gives you the basic idea.

The link here, takes you to a PBS special from some time ago which allows you to plug different numbers in and guess how many other civilizations there might be!

But this is where you can keep an eye on the headlines,

The French have recently launched a space-telescope which should be able to find "Earthlike" planets.

Corot Launched : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6203161.stm,
when "Corot" finds some planets, we can then do math to figure out how common they are ,and basically "know" one of the numbers Drake only could guess at in the 1960's.

In a few months the US/NASA will - funding allowed - be able to launch an satelite in 2008 called "Kepler" which will search for "Earthlike" finding space-telescope of our own.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/tpf_techwed_040526.html

One of Drakes "factors" was on how many worlds around a star does life develop independently

Titan has a thick atmosphere and a varied terrain with methane lakes, rivers and ice-mountains and so could be a candidate for some cold-methane based life-forms.

We know that Titan, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, and a host of other moons of the outer solar system, are "geologically" active, in that they are being squeezed by gravity from their parent worlds sufficiently that there is very active geology, this geology is on the "surface" ice but also exists internally, Underneath the ice, perhaps dozens of meters or miles beneath, would be large, deep liquid oceans, surrounding small rocky moons, If you have water, something to generate heat and abundant chemicals, odds are you have a good chance the conditions for life.

Put another way, if we took microbes and perhaps some small archean life-forms from Earth's oceans and put them in the Europan seas, the would do just fine and would find the place quite comfortable.

So I'm actually fairly optimistic that we might find life in our own solar system, having said that, the problem is that the life could be just that, From Earth, through some ancient impact, there is a very small possibility that microbes from Earth hitched a ride on a rock thrown up which landed on Europa and seeded their oceans with ancient Earth-generated life.

If we find however there is life on Europa AND that life is not "related" to life on Earth - that it developed independently on Europa or Titan or wherever we find it, then we can know that the universe is fairly friendly to life formation, and that most of the stars we see probably have at least microbial life, it could also mean that advanced life-forms, animals, and possibly other civilizations are also much more common.

Drake Equation : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/drake.html

Another question similar to yours is whether we will contact or ever be contacted by an alien civilization.

The SETI program in the 1990's and presently is designed to discovery signals from alien civilizations, and it is regularly if not constantly listening towards the stars for the faintest of signals.

But this question actually has a suprising answer, the answer may ALREADY be yes. The transmission is called the "Wow" signal and was detected on August 15,1977.

IF we were to asume the "Wow signal" is genuine,that means we would have been able to detect an alien civilization's message without it being specifically "for" us, which is a rare find, but after only 80 or 90 years of looking - and only a few years of specifically looking for alien signals, and that could potentially mean the universe is crawling with life!

However, because it's just a fluke since we have not since found another "Wow" type signal,we shouldn't get too excited.

In the movie Contact (based on the Carl Sagan novel), the first 1/2 of the movie shows what a "first contact" situation might actually be like. It's unlikely that the signal would be able to be interpreted in the first couple of years or maybe even decades.

An open and interesting socioloigcal question is what would the immediate aftermath (on Earth) be of a first contact situation, the movie points out some of the "popular" disruptions to society.

Corot : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6203161.stm
Kepler and Corot : http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/tpf_techwed_040526.html
Drake Equation : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/drake.html
The WOW signal : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow%21_signal
Contact : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/

Answer 2

Millions of people all around the globe would like to know the answer to this question and scientists are working very hard to find out that very information.

One place where you can go to read the latest information is
www.exoplanets.org

There they list out the current status of the search for an
earthlike planet which may be orbiting another star (like our Sun) somewhere within our Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy, by the way, contains over 200 Billion Stars, so the search will be a rather tedius one.

However, with 200 Billion Stars to choose from, the chances of finding at least one that is a pretty close match to Earth is rather good. What is alive there is a completely different question though. Chances are not very good that we will find human equivalents living there. Much more probable is that we would discover some kind of insects, worms, or fishes living there. So, the chances of EMailing a fish, etc., are pretty much zero.

Answer 3

As for the possibility of any kind of life anywhere, it would *seem* to be almost inevitable. But those who say it is certain, are overstating the case. We must allow for the possibility, no matter how slight, that our planet may be unique.

There may still be a couple of places in our solar system where simple, microbial life might exist, but the chances of intelligent life is essentially nil. The galaxy and of course, the Universe offer a vast number of possibilities for intelligent life, but it may be so rare that it could be thousands of years before we ever discover it. If such a discovery is ever made, it will almost certainly be by detecting some kind of EM transmission, probably radio, from another star system.

Answer 4

yes there is.
LIFE as defined by: chemical reactions that reproduce themselves.

Is Automatic if the conditions are correct

But the correct conditions are very rare and very spread out.

The best place to look for ET is the next several stars infront of and behind us along our arm of the Milky Way. They are our closest neighbors in time as well as in distance. Their solar systems originated from the same spot on the Milkey Way's Glactic core as us, and thus are made of the same types of material.

Good Luck

Answer 5

Nobody knows. Sorry to say it in a few words but that's the true. If someone says it is, I would be glad that he/she goes to NASA or ESAU or the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory or JP or SE TI, or may call Seth Shostak, and take them his/her proofs there in order that taxpayers save a lot of money that it is being invested in founding life in the universe.

Answer 6

Only the human life aboard the I.S.S. in orbit as far as we know is the only life out there but as more and more probes are sent out to explore, life may be found on Europa or Mars, but as far as we humans know where alone out there.

Answer 7

1. Start your own science institute



2. Scan the Stars.


3. Publish on web. all science is now published on web.


PUBLISH RESEARCH ON WEB FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE. ON WEB.

Answer 8

Was JFKs final thought "Gee, I could really go for a peanut butter sandwich about now"?

We don't know.

And guess what? We never will.

Answer 9

there may be on mars my 5th grade science techer was saying they had found water on Mars which may indicate past or present life.

Answer 10

I like being unique