Comments on: What Are The Odds That Aliens Exist?

By: Local Fluff

Local Fluff — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 19:14:07 +0000

Nice drawing of the space station! Gigantic pine trees or tiny houses, very exotic.
Anyway, that Tabby’s star thing is just a defect in the Kepler telescope. All anomalies only occurred when the telescope was oriented in the same way (it turned four times a year). The 100 year slow dimming of that star is different. That could be astrophysical. But it seems to be complicated to analyze historic photographic plates in a proper way. One has to account for what chemicals were used at different times and places and how they have aged, at what observatory with what optics and on and on a bit beyond common astronomy today. I imagine that there’s room for some debate about the interpretation of this complicated data, if there are people around who are knowledgeable enough to debate it.

By: Robert Curry

Robert Curry — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 15:48:15 +0000

I am 100% certain that our human species is not alone in our so called big bang universe. The chance of meeting other advanced life is near zero. Because of distance, location and for a variety of reasons are never able to develop for extensive space exploration and travel before major set backs or extinction.

By: Ron Ansara

Ron Ansara — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 21:29:46 +0000

I’ve always thought that the most problematic variable of the drake equation was the last one: “The length of time a civilization might last.” Allow me to illustrate:

Radio is arguably the first technology developed by human beings which allowed us to communicate with and detect signals from the cosmos. The first radio broadcast was made in 1895 (one could argue that radio technology was so primitive as to be useless for interstellar communication at that time, but let’s leave that aside for now).

On the other hand, atomic weapons were first detonated on a large scale less than 50 years following the invention of radio. That means that human beings had a 50-year window during which we could communicate with the stars before we gained the ability to annihilate ourselves. Add to that the fact that the observable universe is 13 billion years old and it’s all too apparent that humanity’s existence in cosmic timelines is minuscule. We’re just a blip on the universal radar.

I don’t doubt that there are millions of sentient beings in the universe. The contentious part is whether our civilizations will exist long enough to cross paths with each other.

By: Alan Mindbender

Alan Mindbender — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 15:02:19 +0000

Designed would denote theism, and physics does not acknowledge this reason for the universe’ existence.
Although I whole heartedly believe there is life elsewhere, statistics demand it, but I don’t believe that any of the first generation stars and their galaxies could have supported early life (billions of years before us) for the simple fact that those stars are quite short lived and marvelously destructive to their environment when they “expire”. In other words, I don’t believe any intelligent life began much sooner than we did, so likely are not star travelers yet.

Great articles sir, I read every one, any other viable science sites are presented to the layman in what I’m sure is ancient Greek.

By: Jpatrick

Jpatrick — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 19:29:42 +0000

I’ve heard it argued that the universe is designed such that alien cultures from different star systems, never mind galaxies, can never contact one another, except forensically.