Rare Earth

[TMA_1]

Well I have been reading a book written by a professor and some of his collegues from UW (here in good old washington state ;) ). I it is about the fact that the many steriotypes of life on other worlds is abundant. Nobody can disprove this, but most scientists agree with the rare earth concept. Many scientists have followed the mathematical concept of adding all the estimates of the number of stars and using the psi factor in estimation for how many livable planets there are to find out how much of a chance there is for alien life. This is kinda silly though from what the book "Rare Earth" states.

This is just a bit of what it gives out for the rarity of earth-like planets out there.

First of all, there needs to be the right kind of star. This includes variables such as:

A star cannot be too close to the core of the galaxy

A Stars too far into the galaxy have erratic movements and have very little metal mass (in order to make planets).

Stars too far outside of the galaxy generally have problems with their orbits in the galaxy, and similarly have low metal mass. They are also usually giants, with relatively low or extremely high amounts of radiation.

If a star is in the right part of the galaxy, it still needs to be the right kind of star, with radiation at low enough levels to not hinder life. They need to be relatively rich in metals in order to form planets. They need to have the right amount of gravitational pull on their sattilites. it goes on and on and on.lol

If this is all done, there still needs to be other variables to be correctly solved.

There needs to be a large body in the solar system, perferably a gas giant. It cant be too close to the planet that can contain life. It cant be too far either. This is to protect it from oncoming large masses in space.

There needs to be a moon that orbits the planet in order to give it the correct tidal actions. It cant be too erratic in its orbit though and it cant be too close or else major problems can occure on the surface of the planet dealing with it's water

the planet that can potentially contain life needs to have the right amount of water, not too much, not too little.

The oxygen problem must be solved. This means that there needs to be a way for evolution to occure and adapt life to alter various chemicals in an atmosphere in order to oxygenate the planet.

the planet needs to support an atmosphere

the planet needs to orbit it's star in correct distance. (very very very on target, it cant be too far or too close)

the planet cannot have too eliptical of an orbit. It needs to be stable in it's track around the star it orbits.

The planet needs to have the correct elements in order to seed the basic components of life, to keep a correct electro-magnetic strong force, to help it in it's orbit with the right amount of mass, etc..

Evolutionary process' have to be correct. This means that there needs to be a spontanious mutation that breeds a being with a higher intellect.

The planet needs to have the right materials to help evolve life into higher and more complex structures.

The planet cannot be bombarded too often with space debries.

The planet must have on going plant life to sustain the right gas elements in the atmosphere.

The list goes on and on. It is huge, and frankly I really respect this book. I am completely against evolution, but I find it interesting that these scientists do a great job in breaking the old myth of "life everywhere". It should not be taken so lightly people. Of course I dont believe in this stuff, but I really liked this book. Sorry if the writing is sub-par. I am kinda out of it today. (no jokes about that last statement either! lol ;) )

[Vanguard3000]

That's pretty neat. I knew most of those things (star size, jupter-like planet, etc), but some of them I never really thought about.

My opinion is that, sure, it may be rare, but given billions of stars in our galaxy alone, there is little doubt in my mind that life exists elsewhere.

[Dunenewt]

There nsut be life on other planets as ours cannot be so individual that its the only one of its kind in over a billion stars

[Caid Ivik]

So, God is expert in planet positioning ;)

[Davidu]

Well, there are about 100.000 million galaxies in our universe. There must be a LOT of "rare earth" planets out there. It's impossible for us to be alone.

And life doesen't have to florish only on "rare earths"... We can have being living in space, or in hyper-space...

Who knows? The vastity of space is so great that we will never know everything about our own universe.

[Vanguard3000]

I doubt a spaceborne creature would be able to exist, but who knows. I was going to bring up a point earlier about beings not necessarily needing oxygen, etc to live though. People often assume aliens will have two arms, two legs, and a head on top of that. I blame Star Trek for that. :)

[Davidu]

An alien being could be a self-aware form of energy. Like an electric cloud that can think.

[slaphapy]

well, as mentioned before there must be life elsewhere in the universe... because there are incredible amounts of stars... there are more stars then the mind can even comprehend in just an ordinary nebula... and there are probably more nebulae in this galaxy alone for the mind to even imagine... as well as more galaxies in the universe then the mind can as well.... the universe is so large that it's impossible to relate it to anything that we can think of...

even if there is life elsewhere in the universe (and i would probably bet my life on it) we will never be able to contact it... because it would take probably millions of years to reach the nearest planet, and even those chances are probably something like .00000000009% and even if a probe we sent out like 30 years ago reaches a planet with inteligent life on it... and i think the oldest probe we sent out just exited the solar system like a year ago or something... after all of this happening, if the inteligent life that finds it can even find out where it came from and how to send it back... it would take so long to get back that earth will most likely not exist...

if you think about it, if you look up at the sky at night, those stars are so incredibly far away that it has possibly taken the photons that reach your eye for you to see that light about a million years or more to reach earth, and to reach your eye at that moment you see them... and photons travel much faster then something like a space probe... i wish we could reach and talk to inteligent life, but the odds are so slim that i think it is highly unprobable...

[Davidu]

Let's just not let ourselves crushed by the immensity of space. One day we'll rule it (if we're smart enough not to destroy ourselves until then).

[emprworm]

very good points, TMA. In fact, we will see in one of my later Tenents of atheism (I think its tenet 19 or one of those), this "cosmic law" that states "wherever conditions for life exist, life will somehow manage to squirm itself out". It is another doctrine of most atheist belief- that there exists life elsewhere in the universe. ANd for most atheists (see: Carl Sagan)- not just simple life, but intelligent life...even superior life. But I'll save that lil' gem for later.

At any rate, this is a high quality post from you. Those points are excellent. The math involved to replicate those conditions by chance are enormous, let alone the math needed for some kind of elemental splicing to create life to begin with. amazing the faith of atheism. it truly does inspire me. as a theist, I sometimes feel like I'm being outdone, in terms of faith and belief, by the atheists.

[TMA_1]

why MUST there be life? that is complete a complete assumption. It might make sense but it has been built up for people to think that way. It has been ingrained in us to just assume that is the way it goes. Do you know how difficult it is to position each and every element in space to create at least a possible place for life? not only that, if life did exist, it would need to be sparked by evolutionary process' to create intelligent life. Life just doesnt focus on intelligence. It is complete random chance. Life doesnt prefer intelligence. It doesnt think at all. It goes along with various properties of the chaos theory. Life adapts to the changes around it. Intelligence is just an alteration from genetics that happened slowly over time. So that in itself is extremely and almost rediculously rare. Now take all the information of finding the right star in the correct place, at the correct time in the galaxy (position) with the right elements, with the right distance from the star, with the right variables in the solar system, with the right amount of elements in that planet, with the right random sparks to create oxygen to help carbon life evolve to higher forms and then to let it by chance evolve to it's environment to build up an intelligent creature.

I know that scientifically it is feasable. I just personally dont agree with evolution. The scientist that wrote this book completely agree's with evolution. He understands though something that makes sense. If evolution is what happened, and that includes evolution of star creation etc, then it is extremely rare. I am just glad that some evolutionists actually stay clear headed from some of the dogma that goes around. Even if i disagree with them. it makes sense to me.

[slaphapy]

i did not say there must be inteligent life... or evolved life, i just said there must be life....

we have even found examples of life in our own solar system, on mars i am almost sure (although i'm not an astronomer) they found evidence of bacteria, did they not?

[TMA_1]

yes it could very well be true, but many scientists state that it is just a rock formation. That isnt bogus either, because good scientists always are careful of such discoveries. It shows though how ultra rare in impiracle evolutionary terms our solar system is.

[slaphapy]

well, if it was bacteria (although it may not have been) then if you can find 2 living, or once living things in just one solar system, don't you think that out of the billions uppon billions uppon billions of amounts of solar systems that the chances that there is not a single other life form out there is incredibly unlikely?

[TMA_1]

its more like showing that our solarsystem is one in trillians. All of the things in perfect formation is extremely staggering in view of the chaotic nature of the universe.

This is one of the reasons I just cant believe in macro evolution. I dont disrespect people who do though, just that I personally have strong spiritual beliefs and this kinda stuff enforces it. Still though doesnt mean Ill be an ass, because scientifically these things are feasable, I just think it is wrong and extremely improbable.lol :)

[SurlyPIG]

Rare? Certainly. Like you posted, TMA, there's an uncountable, unquantifiable number of variables and dependancies involved. Rare? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely not. We exist, don't we? ;)

[Davidu]

The infinity holds the key to life. So many worlds out there... It is absurd to think that we're alone.

[TMA_1]

I said RARE, not ALONE. big difference. Of course I think we are alone anyways.lol The info I am talking about though just says that it is rare, and in the mind of evolutionary ideas, I agree.

[Acriku]

Life doesn't have to be aerobic, besides we don't know what life has to have to live. We know what it has to have to live on our planet, but there may be some funky stuff out there. Instead of ruling anything out just yet, I'd continue the great search among the stars.

[TMA_1]

life needs to be carbon based. though others say differently, any other element would be way too unstable. Also anaerobic life is extremely weak, power wise. The production of ATP molecules is many times less that of aerobic life. intelligent life could not form from this type of life. I am talking about intelligent life in space so its a lot harder than people take it for.

[Dude_Doc]

Okay, then lets assume there is life in our universe, alien, grey skin, black eyes, taste for human burgers etc... What if they live so far away, that by the day their or our transmission "is anybody out there?" reaches them/us, the universe would have "died". Would this count as being alone? What if all galaxies we know of (I think they was fromed into a gigantic spiral or something) is just a small small part of the real big universe?

[TMA_1]

well those things we dont know of yet cannot be assumed to be real. thats the whole point I am getting at. if you dont know but base it on a decen guess, you still cannot say it is true that we are not alone.

[nemafakei]

It all rather depends on what is classed as 'life'. We cannot investigate every chemical possibility in every possible envirenment; we can investigate very few. Our imagination, as always, is limited by our experience...

[TMA_1]

oh I am just discussing the idea of intelligent life on other planets. It could be very possible that there might be microbial life out there. People have a tendancy though to think that if there is basic life, there must be intelligent life out there as well. It is even questionable if life outside of our planet even exists.

[Davidu]

It is very likely to find bacteria on Mars...

And on the Europa ( Jupiter's sattelite) there are oceans beneath the ice crust. And where is water there is life.