Astronomy & Space Exploration

giggs-beckham said:
I think we arent alone in the universe. But that intelligent life is so rare and spread out in space and time that the chances of us meeting them is very low as nothing can travel fast enough to get there and our civilisations wont last long enough...

Would love to be wrong though.
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It is quite possible that we are not alone in our galaxy, considering the number of potentially habitable planets being discovered.

What is really fascinating is to think logically about what another so called intelligent life form might look like.

And when you consider the human form, a brain that is protected by a scull, sense organs high up and close to the brain, bipedal to allow hands to be used for a variety of functions and hands with articulating thumb and forefinger, it is quite easy to think that this is close to an optimal configuration.

Nature is very good at evolution without wasting energy and doing things in the most efficient way.
 
MrMarcello said:
It was a throw away comment, not my full sentiment. It's a theory/topic I've spent all of maybe 30 mins of my life reading about. I do find it a fascinating topic despite knowing next to nothing about it.
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It is a fascinating subject I agree with you.
In terms of the human species, there is a great deal of information on how we evolved. Albeit, not always based upon complete skeletons, but quite small bone fragments and comparative assessment.
 
The only way we were created by an alien civilization is if they life-seeded the Earth, and thus created all life on Earth. The problem is that there's zero indication that that's the case. At best the argument is "we don't know how life began on Earth", but that just pushes the question up one level. The life that created us had to begin too.
 
nimic said:
The only way we were created by an alien civilization is if they life-seeded the Earth, and thus created all life on Earth. The problem is that there's zero indication that that's the case. At best the argument is "we don't know how life began on Earth", but that just pushes the question up one level. The life that created us had to begin too.
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Exactly. All life on earth is related, why has that only happened once though, mind confused.
 
Buster15 said:
It is quite possible that we are not alone in our galaxy, considering the number of potentially habitable planets being discovered.

What is really fascinating is to think logically about what another so called intelligent life form might look like.

And when you consider the human form, a brain that is protected by a scull, sense organs high up and close to the brain, bipedal to allow hands to be used for a variety of functions and hands with articulating thumb and forefinger, it is quite easy to think that this is close to an optimal configuration.

Nature is very good at evolution without wasting energy and doing things in the most efficient way.
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I'm guessing you're like me a star trek fan.
And yes you'd think that convergent evolution would be a universal phenomenon.

Sorry it took so long to respond I've been mainly drunk.
 
giggs-beckham said:
What we experience as reality could be a holographic simulation due to the conservation of information or something (need to bone up on that one)
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Yep, that makes a lot of sense, and fit with the quantum theory. Physical world doesn't exist. We are just a bunch of vibrating quarks, that would morph into form only when observed.

Just like the computer games we create.
 
Yep, that makes a lot of sense, and fit with the quantum theory. Physical world doesn't exist. We are just a bunch of vibrating quarks, that would morph into form only when observed.

Just like the computer games we create.
[/QUOTE]
I was referring to the information paradox.
 
George Owen said:
Yep, that makes a lot of sense, and fit with the quantum theory. Physical world doesn't exist. We are just a bunch of vibrating quarks, that would morph into form only when observed.

Just like the computer games we create.
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Look into wave particle duality and the double slit experiment, very cool and eye opening.
And quarks are part of the standard model of particle physics.
Best thread on the caff btw.
 
George Owen said:
Yep, that makes a lot of sense, and fit with the quantum theory. Physical world doesn't exist. We are just a bunch of vibrating quarks, that would morph into form only when observed.

Just like the computer games we create.
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Not sure if I agree with that.
Yes, we all are made of quarks/protons and neutrons and of course electrons, as is all matter.

However, the physical world does exist because physical things exist.
Trees don't suddenly morph into form. When cut, we can all see the rings of growth.

At the quantum level, you are right. Elementary particals are what we see only when we interact with them.
 
giggs-beckham said:
I'm guessing you're like me a star trek fan.
And yes you'd think that convergent evolution would be a universal phenomenon.

Sorry it took so long to respond I've been mainly drunk.
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Drunk on knowledge no doubt.
Sorry. Not a star trek fan. I did watch it when it first came out but not since.
I am not a fan of science fiction. Only science fact.
 
giggs-beckham said:
Look into wave particle duality and the double slit experiment, very cool and eye opening.
And quarks are part of the standard model of particle physics.
Best thread on the caff btw.
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Talk of quarks and electrons and the other fundamental particles reminds me that the physical matter that we know about, or think we know about in our universe amounts to just 4% of the actual matter.

There has to be 96% more matter in our universe to keep expanding at it's current rate.

If it contained just the physical matter, our universe would have evolved completely differently.
 
Buster15 said:
Talk of quarks and electrons and the other fundamental particles reminds me that the physical matter that we know about, or think we know about in our universe amounts to just 4% of the actual matter.

There has to be 96% more matter in our universe to keep expanding at it's current rate.

If it contained just the physical matter, our universe would have evolved completely differently.
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Specifically, ordinary matter amounts to 15% of the matter in the universe, and ~4-5% of the mass-energy. Dark matter makes up the rest of the matter, but it's still physical since ordinary matter interacts gravitationally with it.

In any case, Dark matter and Dark energy are very fascinating. Hopefully we'll make progress in describing what exactly they are.
 
giggs-beckham said:
Exactly. All life on earth is related, why has that only happened once though, mind confused.
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Any new life on earth would probably have been killed by the more advanced old life.

Wouldn't it?

I'd love for us to look for life around Jupiter and saturns moons. You've got deep oceans around loads of them, possible panspermia due to frequent ejection events, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if life on moons was the most common type of life in the universe. If liquid water is the main requirement for life (plus heat etc) then in our solar system alone there are far more moons with liquid water than there are planets (off the top of my head I think 8:1?)

If life appears on any moon, there is a good chance it would evolve to survive being frozen for long periods as the internal temperature of the subterranean oceans change.

If life survives being frozen for long periods then it can probably survive an eviction event when encased in ice. And there is a good chance it would therefore survive an impact with another moon and maybe even lasting until the surface ice becomes subterranean ice and eventually thaws and becomes water seeding other bodies.

That seems fantastic but we've discovered martian rocks here on earth caused by eviction events. The delta V required to travel from Mars to Earth (and just the shear improbability) is magnitudes greater than travelling from one Jupiter moon to another.
 
nimic said:
Specifically, ordinary matter amounts to 15% of the matter in the universe, and ~4-5% of the mass-energy. Dark matter makes up the rest of the matter, but it's still physical since ordinary matter interacts gravitationally with it.

In any case, Dark matter and Dark energy are very fascinating. Hopefully we'll make progress in describing what exactly they are.
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Interesting.
Where did you get that information from.
Because I have just checked with my Brian Cox books which I normally use for reference and it states that - ordinary matter as defined by the Standard Model makes up just 4% of the matter in the observable universe.

Maybe I have not clearly understood the way you are expressing it.
 
Buster15 said:
Interesting.
Where did you get that information from.
Because I have just checked with my Brian Cox books which I normally use for reference and it states that - ordinary matter as defined by the Standard Model makes up just 4% of the matter in the observable universe.

Maybe I have not clearly understood the way you are expressing it.
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Does it specifically say matter? It's absolutely correct that ordinary matter makes up 4-5% of the stuff (matter and energy) in the Universe, but out of all the matter it's 15%, the rest being Dark matter. The remaining stuff is dark energy, which isn't matter (probably).
 
Buster15 said:
Talk of quarks and electrons and the other fundamental particles reminds me that the physical matter that we know about, or think we know about in our universe amounts to just 4% of the actual matter.

There has to be 96% more matter in our universe to keep expanding at it's current rate.

If it contained just the physical matter, our universe would have evolved completely differently.
Click to expand...
I wonder if well ever be able to detect and or completely understand dark energy.
 
nimic said:
Does it specifically say matter? It's absolutely correct that ordinary matter makes up 4-5% of the stuff (matter and energy) in the Universe, but out of all the matter it's 15%, the rest being Dark matter. The remaining stuff is dark energy, which isn't matter (probably).
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Yea but we dont include dark matter with normal matter (yet) we do understand it more than dark energy though I believe.
 
giggs-beckham said:
I wonder if well ever be able to detect and or completely understand dark energy.
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Unlikely in our lifetime. Thing is, the dark energy so far is just a name for the remaining 80 something percent of the mass/energy that needs to exist for the inflation theory to work. From all new physic theories, is the one we understand less (even less than M-theory for example) and easily, can be totally wrong.

On the other hand, it would be a big achievement if we start understanding better the dark matter (which again we know feck all about, except that for the theory of gravity to work, it needs to exist).

In truth, I think that the modern physics has long surpassed technology (and maybe, in fact likely, new mathematics need to be developed) so it is hard to see developments in this century that are comparable to the last one. Hopefully superstring theory will continue to be developed, but even there, there seems that with the current methods, the scientists are reaching the limits.
 
MrMarcello said:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...-found-evidence-of-life-on-mars-in-the-1970s/
I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s
The Labeled Release experiment on the Viking mission reported positive results, although most have dismissed them as inorganic chemical reactions
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just getting to see humans go back to the moon in 2024 and hopefully Mars early-2030's would be a life defining moment for me. Don't think i'll ever see even microbe life discoveries in my lifetime but damn, i want to see humans on mars.
 
WPMUFC said:
just getting to see humans go back to the moon in 2024 and hopefully Mars early-2030's would be a life defining moment for me. Don't think i'll ever see even microbe life discoveries in my lifetime but damn, i want to see humans on mars.
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So do I.
In the meantime you will have to settle for watching the film The Martian.
 
Revan said:
Unlikely in our lifetime. Thing is, the dark energy so far is just a name for the remaining 80 something percent of the mass/energy that needs to exist for the inflation theory to work. From all new physic theories, is the one we understand less (even less than M-theory for example) and easily, can be totally wrong.

On the other hand, it would be a big achievement if we start understanding better the dark matter (which again we know feck all about, except that for the theory of gravity to work, it needs to exist).

In truth, I think that the modern physics has long surpassed technology (and maybe, in fact likely, new mathematics need to be developed) so it is hard to see developments in this century that are comparable to the last one. Hopefully superstring theory will continue to be developed, but even there, there seems that with the current methods, the scientists are reaching the limits.
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I have to admit that I just don't understand string theory at all.
I have read about it and the impression I have is that it is not as strong a theory as it was some years ago.
 
giggs-beckham said:
I think we arent alone in the universe. But that intelligent life is so rare and spread out in space and time that the chances of us meeting them is very low as nothing can travel fast enough to get there and our civilisations wont last long enough...

Would love to be wrong though.
Click to expand...
This is how I feel too. In fact when I think about the vastness of the universe (the observable universe contains more then 2 trillion galaxies I read!) it seems more likely than unlikely that there would be life somewhere out there. With so many possibilities the right conditions must be in existence somewhere other then Earth.

But I agree, we are too far apart and live for such a relatively small time that we may as well be alone as we will never discover one another.

Also because the Universe is forever changing, I expect there are planets out there that maybe had intelligent life but now appear baron, clouds of gas, fragments of a planet or even vanished, devoured by it's own sun. So we maybe for example look somewhere fairly nearby (in the big scheme of things) and think nope, no life there...but there could have been a long time ago.

Maybe billions, trillions of years from now an alien civilisation with advanced technology will view where Earth once was and come to the conclusion, nope, nothing there - an entire civilisation lost, forgotten forever. In fact forgotten by who? That to me is our future.

I think there have probably been and will be countless civilisations that have and will exist throughout the universe (ours is just one). And they could exist for trillions of years which may as well be a blink of an eye. And they will be lost for eternity. What did they achieve? What was their culture, what kind of creatures were they? All lost gone forever.

Didn't actually mean such a long rambling post, just a train of thought! Basically, try and enjoy every day we are lucky enough to live!
 
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I think we are spoiled because earth was always too good for life. But we dont know what the odds are of life starting even when conditions are perfect. It might be 1 in 10 trillions, who knows? Life as we know would require elements that the two first generations of stars didn't have. So is not like something as a human could evolve 10 billion years ago. Its pretty possible that earth is among the first generation of planets orbiting a star that can create life(as we know).

Our solar system apparently is not very typical. In the majority of systems found, planets are closer to the star than mercury, there are a lot of gas giants, hot jupiters, etc. Our sun also seems to be very mild compared with same type of star.

Earth could sustain life from the beginning. However, intelligence only evolved very recently. Think about the eons of many incredible animals walking in this planet. Why took so long for intelligence? It seems to be an anomaly, not something you should expect to happen. I think we are alone. I hope i'm wrong. I would love to talk to an alien and ask: what do you think this is all about?
 
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Charles Miller said:
I think we are spoiled because earth was always too good for life. But we dont know what the odds are of life starting even when conditions are perfect. It might be 1 in 10 trillions, who knows? Life as we know would require elements that the two first generations of stars didn't have. So is not like something as a human could evolve 10 billion years ago. Its pretty possible that earth is among the first generation of planets orbiting a star that can create life(as we know).

Our solar system apparently is not very typical. In the majority of systems found, planets are closer to the star than mercury, there are a lot of gas giants, hot jupiters, etc. Our sun also seems to be very mild compared with same type of star.

Earth could sustain life from the beginning. However, intelligence only evolved very recently. Think about the eons of many incredible animals walking in this planet. Why took so long for intelligence? It seems to be an anomaly, not something you should expect to happen. I think we are alone. I hope i'm wrong. I would love to talk to an alien and ask: what do you think this is all about?
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Probably. There are circa 10 million species on Earth (likely many more if we count the species that are not anymore), but only one can be described as intelligent (or at least able to build technology).

At the same time, there are likely trillions of planets and moons only in our galaxy, and a conservative estimate would put the number of planets and moons to 10^23 in the universe (providing that the other galaxies are similar to Milky Way in that aspect). So actually, the number of planets/moons in so much larger than the number of species on Earth. In fact, if for every 10 million planets (same as the number of Earth species), only one can develop life, and if for every 10 millions of those planets with life, only one can develop intelligent life, there would be ten billion intelligent civilizations on the universe. Essentially, the universe is so big, that even the chances of life being developed in a planet is extremely low, and the chances of intelligent life (when life is developed) is extremely low, still there should be many intelligent civilizations right there.

Of course, the Earth can be an one-off event, but I don't think there are many reasons to believe so. By sheer chance, there should be trillions of planets (in the universe) who are similar to Earth. And probably millions (if not billions) of them would be in our galaxy alone.

Life doesn't exist anywhere else cause we haven't made contact with such civilizations (Drake equation) to me is total nonsense. We just started looking for it half a century ago. And we still have a very shitty technology. And we can only look at our galaxy. Actually, at a very small part of the galaxy. There could be countless reasons why we still haven't made contact, but I am extremely confident that there are plenty of intelligent civilizations right there. The thing is, if they are outside of out galaxy, then it is very likely that we won't ever make contact with them. And even if they are in our galaxy, it might take millennia (if not millions of years) to actually make contact. The universe is a large place, and there might well be theoretical limitations to what we can do (there isn't many reasons to believe that FTL traveling can ever exist).
 
Revan said:
Life doesn't exist anywhere else cause we haven't made contact with such civilizations (Drake equation) to me is total nonsense.
I believe you mean Fermi Paradox, where are they? I have to be honest, i dont think Drake equation is science.

We just started looking for it half a century ago. And we still have a very shitty technology. And we can only look at our galaxy. Actually, at a very small part of the galaxy. There could be countless reasons why we still haven't made contact, but I am extremely confident that there are plenty of intelligent civilizations right there.
I hope so. But there is something people like Calttech physicist Sean Carroll use to say that i agree: if we apply the copernican principle, we should be average, not assume we are in a special position. Taking that into account, the galaxy should be full of intelligent life, or be a place where life is very rare and we might be the only case.

The thing is, if they are outside of out galaxy, then it is very likely that we won't ever make contact with them. And even if they are in our galaxy, it might take millennia (if not millions of years) to actually make contact. The universe is a large place, and there might well be theoretical limitations to what we can do (there isn't many reasons to believe that FTL traveling can ever exist).
In the last decades, with access to supercomputers, aatronomers could run simulations and the result is always the same. Even if just some few advanced civilization sexisted, using the motion of stars to colonize only the closest stars to their own system, with no relativist speed ship, they woud create such a net in the milk way, that it would be hard to explain why they are not here.
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Charles Miller said:
I think we are spoiled because earth was always too good for life. But we dont know what the odds are of life starting even when conditions are perfect. It might be 1 in 10 trillions, who knows? Life as we know would require elements that the two first generations of stars didn't have. So is not like something as a human could evolve 10 billion years ago. Its pretty possible that earth is among the first generation of planets orbiting a star that can create life(as we know).

Our solar system apparently is not very typical. In the majority of systems found, planets are closer to the star than mercury, there are a lot of gas giants, hot jupiters, etc. Our sun also seems to be very mild compared with same type of star.

Earth could sustain life from the beginning. However, intelligence only evolved very recently. Think about the eons of many incredible animals walking in this planet. Why took so long for intelligence? It seems to be an anomaly, not something you should expect to happen. I think we are alone. I hope i'm wrong. I would love to talk to an alien and ask: what do you think this is all about?
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That is a perfectly plausible view.
And as I have previously mentioned, complex multicellular life on earth had to make a number of step changes and overcome a number of bottlenecks to evolve.

But. I just cannot believe that somewhere in the countless billions of galaxies, what we term as intelligent life has not made similar progress.

And in that eventuality, they may well be thinking a similar thing.

What I do believe though is that us and them may not coincide at the same time. Or, they may be sufficiently far away that we may not both be able to communicate.

Hope I am wrong though.
 
We may have spotted a parallel universe going backwards in time
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Strange particles observed by an experiment in Antarctica could be evidence of an alternative reality where everything is upside down.

Read more:
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-a-parallel-universe-going-backwards-in-time/
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There's a bit more on that head melting news here as most of the original article is behind a paywall:

https://www.disclose.tv/a-parallel-...s-has-been-detected-by-nasa-scientists-401074
 
ArmandTamzarian said:
There's a bit more on that head melting news here as most of the original article is behind a paywall:

https://www.disclose.tv/a-parallel-...s-has-been-detected-by-nasa-scientists-401074
Click to expand...

What they have discovered seems really interesting but that's a really click bait title as the (non peer reviewed) paper doesn't really say that at all. It does say that what they have found can't be explained by the Standard Model but offers some vague ideas which need more examination. One of them is reflection off the surface in the ice and others, one of which the headline seems to focus on which is supersymmetry.

Really interesting though and something that will need looking at. The paper is in the link.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...in_the_direction_of_ANITA_neutrino_candidates
 
Buster15 said:
I have to admit that I just don't understand string theory at all.
I have read about it and the impression I have is that it is not as strong a theory as it was some years ago.
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The problem with string theory is that's its untestable as the 'string' as it were is too small to detect in any way so it remains a purely mathematical theory.
 
Revan said:
Unlikely in our lifetime. Thing is, the dark energy so far is just a name for the remaining 80 something percent of the mass/energy that needs to exist for the inflation theory to work. From all new physic theories, is the one we understand less (even less than M-theory for example) and easily, can be totally wrong.

On the other hand, it would be a big achievement if we start understanding better the dark matter (which again we know feck all about, except that for the theory of gravity to work, it needs to exist).

In truth, I think that the modern physics has long surpassed technology (and maybe, in fact likely, new mathematics need to be developed) so it is hard to see developments in this century that are comparable to the last one. Hopefully superstring theory will continue to be developed, but even there, there seems that with the current methods, the scientists are reaching the limits.
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Dark energy and dark matter are called as such due to our lack of understanding of them. But there must be a reason why the universe expands faster and faster as it does and this 'energy' is dominant, shame we've got no clue about it. It could be beyond our comprehension let's not rule out.
 
Noc-Z said:
This is how I feel too. In fact when I think about the vastness of the universe (the observable universe contains more then 2 trillion galaxies I read!) it seems more likely than unlikely that there would be life somewhere out there. With so many possibilities the right conditions must be in existence somewhere other then Earth.

But I agree, we are too far apart and live for such a relatively small time that we may as well be alone as we will never discover one another.

Also because the Universe is forever changing, I expect there are planets out there that maybe had intelligent life but now appear baron, clouds of gas, fragments of a planet or even vanished, devoured by it's own sun. So we maybe for example look somewhere fairly nearby (in the big scheme of things) and think nope, no life there...but there could have been a long time ago.

Maybe billions, trillions of years from now an alien civilisation with advanced technology will view where Earth once was and come to the conclusion, nope, nothing there - an entire civilisation lost, forgotten forever. In fact forgotten by who? That to me is our future.

I think there have probably been and will be countless civilisations that have and will exist throughout the universe (ours is just one). And they could exist for trillions of years which may as well be a blink of an eye. And they will be lost for eternity. What did they achieve? What was their culture, what kind of creatures were they? All lost gone forever.

Didn't actually mean such a long rambling post, just a train of thought! Basically, try and enjoy every day we are lucky enough to live!
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Agreed basically, I'm a glass half full guy but I think were not alone but well never meet an alien civilisation because I think were a relative miracle really. And a ramble in this thread is more than welcome. Thank you.
 
Charles Miller said:
I think we are spoiled because earth was always too good for life. But we dont know what the odds are of life starting even when conditions are perfect. It might be 1 in 10 trillions, who knows? Life as we know would require elements that the two first generations of stars didn't have. So is not like something as a human could evolve 10 billion years ago. Its pretty possible that earth is among the first generation of planets orbiting a star that can create life(as we know).

Our solar system apparently is not very typical. In the majority of systems found, planets are closer to the star than mercury, there are a lot of gas giants, hot jupiters, etc. Our sun also seems to be very mild compared with same type of star.

Earth could sustain life from the beginning. However, intelligence only evolved very recently. Think about the eons of many incredible animals walking in this planet. Why took so long for intelligence? It seems to be an anomaly, not something you should expect to happen. I think we are alone. I hope i'm wrong. I would love to talk to an alien and ask: what do you think this is all about?
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Yea but as long as a planet is in the habital zone then water and life could exist in our own definitions. That could be a red dwarf or a binary system as u say were special. But I raised the point before that our unique conditions seem perfect for us but who knows other life might find other conditions than ours just as unique and important and may view ours as not conducive for life.
 
ArmandTamzarian said:


There's a bit more on that head melting news here as most of the original article is behind a paywall:

https://www.disclose.tv/a-parallel-...s-has-been-detected-by-nasa-scientists-401074
Click to expand...
This is probably the neutrino oscillation. Its predicted that neutrinos can change its nature(become another particles) many times while traveling from a point to another. Fermilab is building a huge facility to test this concept. Its not clear to me if it was the journalist or a scientist who throw the parallel universe part. Because it seems a pre-relativity vision of time. A idea that there is an absolute time in our own universe that we could use to compare with some parallel universe.
 
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