New missions and discoveries on Earth, within our solar system and beyond are bringing us closer than ever to finding alien life on other planets
Posted 10.18.2011 at 11:30 am
43 Comments
“The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms,” is how Andrei Finkelstein, the director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’s Applied Astronomy Institute, explained his ambitious timeline for finding alien life to an audience of astrobiologists and reporters in June. “There is life on other planets, and we will find it in 20 years."
But Tullis Onstott, a geologist at Princeton University who specializes in astrobiology, makes an even more ambitious prediction. “In the next 15 years,” he says, “we will likely discover life on an exoplanet near us.” Scientists have long predicted the discovery of extraterrestrial life, but Finkelstein and Onstott have good reason to be optimistic. Researchers are devoting more resources to the search for alien life than ever before, and they are getting some enticing results.
Click here to launch a gallery of projects attempting to make contact
Since 1996, when NASA created its current astrobiology program, the agency has increased the annual budget from $10 million to $55 million. In that same period, the overall number of astrobiologists increased to a few thousand worldwide, and the number of papers they published rose from around 40 to nearly 3,000. Informed by such work, NASA has planned a full slate of search-for-life missions for the next two decades. This year, scientists using data from the Kepler space telescope have found evidence of more than 1,200 new exoplanets, 54 of them potentially habitable, and this fall, NASA will send a rover to Mars to search for the chemical signatures of life. In 2018, it plans to send another rover to Mars—one that will eventually provide soil samples that return to Earth.
Scientists have also outlined a two-craft mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, and they are designing new telescopes, more sophisticated than Kepler, that could look into distant star systems to spot signs of life directly. What we’ll find remains a mystery, of course, but the way we’ll find it is well mapped out.
THE BACKYARD
The first work starts here at home. By studying life that exists in extreme environments, scientists are learning a great deal about how and where to look for it on other planets. Researchers have found microbes in volcanic calderas, deep ocean vents and arsenic-laden lakes [see “Scientist in a Strange Land,”], and the existence of these “extremophile” life-forms has redefined the concept of habitability on this planet and elsewhere.
Alien Ground: Scientists could use microbes found in Vostok, Whillans and ellsworth, three subglacial lakes in Antarctica, to create DNA probes and biosignature models to be used by future search-for-life missions in our solar system Kevin Hand
Alfonso Davila, a research scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center, was part of a team that found microorganisms living in salt crystals in Chile’s ultradry Atacama Desert. The organisms managed to survive on atmospheric water vapor, Davila says, so similar organisms might also survive in salt deposits on Mars, which has enough atmospheric water vapor to form frost. Microbiologist Lyle Whyte of McGill University in Montreal found bacteria living at subzero temperatures in a methane-rich spring on Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic Ocean. Similar life-forms could also be the source of the recently discovered methane plumes on Mars. “There could be microorganisms in the deep subsurface of Mars that produce the gas,” Whyte says. And this winter, scientists will get a look at how life might exist on the ice moons of Jupiter. Scientists have yet to tap any of the more than 150 lakes sealed beneath the Antarctic ice cap, but starting in December, research teams will complete three drilling projects in as many years.
Researchers from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in Russia will reach water first when they drill into Lake Vostok, a body of water roughly the size of Lake Ontario that has been isolated for as long as 20 million years under an ice cap that is now well over two miles thick. Because the water beneath the lake is sealed off, devoid of light and extremely cold, it is an unusually close analogue to Europa, where a thick layer of ice blocks sunlight from reaching a suspected subsurface ocean. “Life in Antarctic subglacial systems will allow us to focus our search for life in Europa’s ocean,” says John Priscu, a microbiologist at Montana State University who in 2014 will melt through half a mile of ice to reach Lake Whillans, 650 miles west of Lake Vostok. “It will allow us to design DNA probes and look for biosignatures in Europa’s ocean.”
The challenge is to get samples without disturbing or contaminating the delicate system. Last February, the Russian team drilled to within 100 feet of the lake water but then had to stop for winter. When work resumes in the austral summer, researchers will switch from a mechanical corer to a heated drill bit to melt through the last 30 feet of ice. The lake water, slowed by an expandable borehole plug on the end of the drill, will rise 100 feet up the hole and freeze. In December 2012, the researchers will return to core and sample it. The samples should generate many clues as to what kind of life can survive in such conditions, even as researchers learn how to better gather such samples in more-difficult conditions. “If there is any chance that Europa’s ice might be thin enough in places for humans to drill or melt into it,” says Robert Pappalardo, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who is heading up the science team on the future mission to Europa, “perhaps Vostok and other subglacial lakes can teach us techniques for doing so."
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“In the next 15 years,” he says, “we will likely discover life on an exoplanet near us.” Scientists have long predicted the discovery of extraterrestrial life, but Finkelstein and Onstott have good reason to be optimistic. Researchers are devoting more resources to the search for alien life than ever before, and they are getting some enticing results."
On Mars the Phoenix Lander team said that underneath the Lander has all the necessary ingredients for life to exist. In the Phoenix Microscopic imager were some rod shaped and scorpion shaped microscopic objects that moved according to this youtube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhfSjJeQf58
So why is so hard to imaged that we may have found life on Mars already when some of the evidence suggest that it does exist right now, including verifying the ice was water ice and the soil at the Lander site had the consistency of mud? If we see life coming up to us waving a white flag at robotic rover we would call it life. If humans find microscopic life on Mars after we dig it up we will claim that we brought it to Mars just like what we claimed about finding trace amounts of water in moon rocks. It took us almost 40 years to verify that the moon does have water ice. It took us about 400 years to verify that the Martian poles had water ice. So to claim that we will find exoplanet life in fifteen years is a wild dream, even if we thought that we were 99.99999999999999999 percent right they will always be doupt even after we go there to find out for ourselves...
Ron Bennett
Paul Von Ward
While I am heartened that some members of the scientific community are willing to forecast the discovery of life on other planets in the next decade or so, I continue to be ashamed that we have a dearth of scientists willing to systematically evaluate the many areas of evidence that advanced beings have already been here. Why is it so taboo to suggest that ancient texts and artifacts point to a high level of intelligence that is inconsistent with the presently accepted history of Homo sapiens development? The argument for doing so is well developed in the book We've Never Been Alone .
Paul Von Ward
This is indeed the great age of exobiology with the continuing finds of new planets and planetary systems almost everyday and even finding evidence for life in old records of the Viking Mars lander that seem to indicate signs of life were found then but were dismiss at the time even the continuing finding of water on the Earth Moon may prove it may have life in it is possible more surprises await us in the future.
rlb2, the biggest issue with any military/government "results" is that they are often closed to the public for many many years so that private research and experimentation can occur. Think about what that proof of life on Mars would do to the current religious sects. If they did find life on Mars (which I'm pretty sure they have given the method in which the information about each rover, lander and orbiter has been handled) it will require a bit of social tweeking to adjust the populations mind set about life on Mars before the information is released. Chaos serves no one any good. Throwing a wrench into the cogs is not a smart idea either. I'd personally LOVE for all information to be truely free, but I know that not all information is safe to be released for any number of reasons. It is mathmatically impossible that life does not exist elsewhere, it's just a matter of time before the information about where we have found it becomes public.
Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978
"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC
Sigh. Everything about the existence of life on Earth screams "outlier". It completely blows away the Mediocrity Principle. On a planet with stable temperate seasons, a large close satellite protecting it from meteors and stablizing it's rotation--yet in 3.5 billion years it the most popular theory is that life has only arisen there ONCE (according to the "Common Descent" theory). For an event to occur only once under prime conditions in 1/4 of the history of the universe is the definition of a miracle. If we find it on another planet, it will be proof of an Intelligent Designer (or that it came from here).
CodeZero-rlb2, "the biggest issue with any military/government "results" is that they are often closed to the public for many many years so that private research and experimentation can occur."
rlb2 reply - That is good for security reasons if we felt threatened but microbes shouldn't threaten us. Up until the Phoenix Lander we were much more open than we are today. To view relatively new up to date raw images from our spacecraft all we had to do was go to the NASA site to see them, with the new probes today it is much more difficult. In the case of the Dawn spacecreaft images from Vesta, it is imposible to see any images not released directly to the public, their excuse is "so that private research and experimentation can occur," To me they are making a huge mistake not using billions of minds, the internet, here on earth to help with their discovery.
Two good personal reasons for NASA to release the images to the public are:
1) In apx. 2005 I used enhanced imaging from Adobe Photoshop of the Enceladus flyby and noticed what looked like a stream of particles coming off its surface. At first I thought it was just poor image quality, I posted it on the web at Space.com blog asking what people thought about this. Months later NASA scientist came out and claimed they have found water jets coming off of the surface of Enceladus.
2) After the Phoenix Lander landed I turned raw images from the Phoenix Lander into color images, it takes at least 3 raw filter images to make a color image RGB -- red, green, blue. I noticed in one image something was missing from the same image taken just one sol later, one sol = one day on Mars. I posted the two images together and again posted them on Space.com blog with the comment, "is this sublimation from water ice which helps prove that there is water ice on Mars." Remember frozen CO2 also exist on Mars but in much colder spots therefore they couldn't completely rule out the north polar region was from dry ice, frozen CO2. About one week later the Phoenix Lander science team had a press conference and claimed to have made a monumental discovery with newer images from the same trench, there was some missing material in the trench. The NASA science team concluded that it was due to sublimation of water ice therefore there is water ice on Mars. This was the first time in history that it was proven that water does exist on Mars.
In the case mentioned above, I'm sure the NASA scientist would have eventually found that out without my help, but what if they wouldn't have put two and two together. In other words, I may had a small part in that information being released to the public?
It a matter of diminishing returns after images are first downloaded from these spacecraft, probes, and rovers because the amount of images released, the MER rovers took hundreds of thousands of images. As a result less and less people look at the data and images years later once they are released therefore a discovery may not happen if so few are looking at them.
Ron Bennett
"For an event to occur only once under prime conditions in 1/4 of the history of the universe is the definition of a miracle. If we find it on another planet, it will be proof of an Intelligent Designer"
The #’s game is easily demolished by a simple deck of cards. Let’s play bridge shall we.
Odds against each player having a complete suit = 2,235,197,406,895,366,368,301,559,999 to 1
But, it happens…
Number of possible auctions with North as dealer, assuming that East and West do not pass throughout = 128,745,650,347,030,683,120,231,926,111,609,371,363,122,697,557
But, it happens…
As for 'intelligent' design I argue s/he/it must have been pretty damn drunk or something because it's more like piss-poor design.
Barely used muscles like the plantaris muscle (foot) are missing in part of the human population. Another example is the muscles that move the ears (some can control) serve no purpose.
Almost all plants/animals synthesize their own vitamin C. Humans cannot because the gene for this enzyme is defective. Lack of vitamin C results in scurvy then eventually death.
Unnecessary wings in flightless birds! Ex: Ostriches
In female humans if a fertilized egg implants into the fallopian tube, cervix, ovary… rather than the uterus… well that’s pretty piss poor design as if the existence of a cavity between the ovary and the fallopian tube. Prior to modern science/surgery, ectopic pregnancy caused the death of both mother and baby (and even now in almost all cases the pregnancy must be aborted to save the mother).
1. An omnipotent, omniscient, Omni benevolent creator God would create organisms that have optimal design.
2. Organisms have features that are suboptimal.
3. Therefore, God either did not create these organisms or is not omnipotent, omniscient and Omni benevolent.
@ThisNameTaken
Your analysis is faulty. Your basic paradigm you are working from automatically does not accept a creator of any sort. You're not actually disproving a creator from another paradigm you are just assuming the consequent of your own paradigm.
yes we are at point in human history where fantasy virtually is becoming fact. science fiction was once thought to be impossible. but now it is becoming our reality.
_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.
- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri
This is an interesting article. I think it’s safe to say there is life on planets in our solar system. Europa, Io, have large oceans, Mars, has ice on it’s surface (liquid beneath?). On top of that it’s been found that microscopic life can survive anywhere from Nuclear waste to pools of arsenic . I think it’s a given that there is life out there.
I’m Christian and the government announcing that they found bacteria, or plants, or even complex life like fish on other planets will not destroy our paradigm. In fact it will reinforce it because it says clearly in the bible that God created the heavens (space) and the earth. So I don’t think the government needs to use the religious as a crutch.
As for intelligent life…I guarantee they are out there, but why in the world would they visit a backwards planet like earth?
And I’m going to make this announcement now, and POPsci will verify in a few years, then the sheep can believe it. There is life on Mars! Mars is steadily releasing methane gas, a by product of biological life. There are also pyramids on Mars. There once was a great civilization on Mars. Even if the planet is mostly dead, there is still some life surviving there. Vegetation for sure and maybe bacteria.
@JediMindset thought you might find this link interesting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlKFeWkdZdY
@ALH
Intelligent life would visit our planet for the same reason people go to the zoo, an aquarium or exam the nature and characteristics of ancient civilizations: academic amusement and entertainment.
First, the aliens have been visiting earth for 10,000 or more years. Perhaps long with no record of it. The aliens toyed each time in their visit with our genetics and they took resources from our planet. We humans feared them by sight and so they had easy control over us as they were close to us.
Of course venturing back and forth to earth is no easy task even for an advance race of aliens. It still takes time.
The aliens of the past left us with a calendars, language, better genetic makeup, a number system and great structures for the single purpose of saying they were here and where they came from, ORION. They did not look any more knowledge than this and they did not leave their tools. If they left their tools, it would be equal to leaving a loaded gun in a baby hands.
Now a day the aliens are in our skies and when they want to watch run about below them, they reduce their cloaking of the ships and we all get excited and point. Most of the time, they keep their cloaking on full and we never know they are there. The aliens do walk about us on earth. They have the ability to project an image in our minds and as we look at them, they see typical human. They wear space suits for our atmosphere or bacteria’s are harmful.
These aliens have been traveling around the universe for an extreme amount of time. There are many various alien races traveling about the universe. Wars have been fought different alien planets over thousands of years. Using stealth technology is common place for offensive, defensive and yes scientific purposes as the aliens study us and influences our lives.
We may find small animals, bugs and bacteria’s and vegetation on planets one day, but that is all we will find. Until the aliens wish to make FIRST CONTACT, we will never find them.
@pheonix1012 true, I can agree with that.
Aldrons Last Hope,
What you do not go along with my comments, lol?
I am glad the evil ALH is gone.
@D13,
great post. you have very interesting questions. but lol @ aliens being racist. its sad but true. racism exists on every country on Earth. so racism in space wouldn't surprise me. but not all of them are, maybe a small percentage. i wonder why didn't dinosaurs ever get intelligent like us? they were around for over a hundred million years and didn't evolve enough to have the intelligence of an ape? makes you wonder if intelligent design really did give us humans a "boost". imagine us humans in 100 millions years. although its unlikely that we make it past 100 years lol.
@Aldrons Last Hope
thanks for the link. i will look at all seven videos.
_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.
- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri
No worry about finding life producing culture shock to anyone… The literalists will just come up with a conspiracy theory.
I myself am very excited for the coming proof of life.
@D13
"The number of radio signals that leave the earth make it a freaking disco ball. No contact?"
As I understand it, your point boils down to the quote above. No extraterrestrial intelligence has made their presence known, therefore they do not exist.
You think that someone out there should have noticed us by now because the earth is a “freaking disco ball”. Let me ask you this, how long do you think this disco ball effect has been going on? 100 Years? Let’s go with that. That seems like a reasonable number. Using that number, our signals would have only reached 100 light years out into the cosmos. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is over 100,000 light years across. There could be several worlds with intelligent civilizations within our own galaxy where our signals haven’t reached yet to draw their attention. The closest galaxy to us is the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy at about 25,000 light years. The Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light years away. There are an estimated 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the Universe which are all extreme astronomical distances away. Intelligent life could exist in any of these galaxies and they would certainly never, ever receive a sign of our existence.
I've been using Makeshift Communicator since I was 6... so far, I've got no life.
@skb-fxstc...your post is the only one that made any sense, the need for two inteligent lifeforms to exist at the same time and be at close proximity seem highly unlikely, the distances are so vast there could be (highly likely) an infinite # of inteligent species (if an infinite amount of universes exist, probably) and we would never meet, the only chance we have is finding primitive life, this would mean life is very common (probably) but finding intelligent life, unlikely, cheers
according to this article > http://www.theallseeingeye.us/Valiant_Thor.html, Mankind has already been found by aliens.
We humans feel we are the intelligent life form on earth. But, should we encounter a outer space alien one day, they may find us as we find our pet.
LOL
qksilver, sorry you've got no life. Why don't you put that aside, go out and make some friends. Socialize. Get a boy/girl friend and have fun.
@JediMindset @JediMindset no problem, this guy worked in Area 51, he doesn’t talk about aliens but does give some insight into the technology the U.S is developing. The video was done in 1998 and he’s talking about quasicrystals, (fringe science at the time), and he even shows a picture of the F22 stealth raptor, this jet was not disclosed to the public until 2005. I find the part of anti-gravity devices very interesting because he’s talking about materials and processes that were fiction in ’98 but in 2011 everyone knows about super conductors, crystalline super cooled liquids and magnetic field acceleration.
Aliens have been with us from day one so this search is just a clever deflection. Main stream science is controlled and manipulated and I don't bother much with consensus science because its not science but politics. I will always go with the work of those scientists unfettered by the system. And there are some fantastic scientists out there doing a great job I would recommend two books the first written by Dr Rick Strassman DMT The Spirit Molecule and Supernatural by researcher Graham Hancock. Both these books examines the alien connection and its primarily the Alien within. They have both arrived at similar conclusions DNA is a highly advanced computer programme and humanity is being guided by elementals.
@ Aldrons Last Hope,
yes and he risked everything by giving all us this info because im sure that the government wants him erased from existence.
_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.
- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri
I think there is no doubt that life exists elsewhere but the question is how likely is it for us to find intelligent life. I think we're more likely to have intelligent life visit us first since we are still so primitive in terms of technology. However, I also feel that given the vastness of space it is more likely that we'll have our first contact with intelligent life not from our own Universe but a parallel one. Since it will probably be more likely, with the advancement of technology, to open gateways to these parallel worlds. Also, and it is just a hunch, but I think their are selective regions in space (meaning parallel Universes within that space) where life is more abundant even between parallel worlds because of the quantum laws of entanglement and the premise of infinite possibilities (for every reaction their are infinite possibilities which must play out). Therefore all of these possibilities play out in the same region of space just parallel to one another, thereby making it easier to open doorways to our neighboring possibilities. So we'll visit the world that never had the dinosours go extinct or one where insects rule or the one where you are a billionaire, etc.
Peter Marino
Chief Science Officer of
SwarmKnowledge.com
While scientists generally agree that life developed on earth shortly after our planet cooled, they also agree that the conditions which existed at the time included water, heat, and a stew of chemicals not yet fully understood. The presence of organisms living in extreme conditions on earth is certainly an encouraging sign for the existence of life in extreme conditions which may exist presently on bodies like Mars and Europa. However, did these terrestrial organisms found in sub glacial lakes or deep in mines actually evolve in those conditions or did they originate in more benign conditions, then evolve to survive in the extreme conditions in which they are found today? How do the DNA results of these organisms compare to similar ones existing today? Since we have only one model, albeit a not fully understood one, of how life develops, I think we must first seek those bodies where we think similar conditions may have existed in their development. I do think that matter tends to more complexity with time and favourable conditions and that life is one of the stages of that complexity - but not necessarily the final one. I do believe we will find that life is ubiquitous in the universe, but that it is perhaps overly optimistic to think that we will find it within several hundred light years of earth, given the immensity of space and the statistical probabilities involved.
However, were we able to actually create a life form in the laboratory out of amino acids and proteins, then we will have a fuller understanding of how carbon based life arises and should aid us in our search. Then again, the first extraterrestrial life we encounter could be copper or silicon based and therefore, totally alien. Then again, what an opportunity that would be as well!
1) Earth has been emitting life signs spectroscopically for 3.5 billion years. If alien intelligences had been looking, they would have found this planet by now.
2) There are literally hundreds of reasons that make the Earth and its human species "special". The accumulation of which is truly astounding when you go and assemble them into a probability curve. Intelligent life therefore, given the probability factors that brought humans to this point, has a very low chance of being common in the universe.
A few of the "we are special" factors:
• Goldielocks location.
• An molten iron core planet producing a planet protecting magnetosphere.
• Vulcanism.
• Liquid water.
• Oceans filtered toxin free by biotic life over 2.5 billion years.
• The generation of oxygen by this life.
• The generation of ozone that protects DNA from constant mutation.
• Continental configuration. Island states would not produce intelligent life.
• Earth tilt. Seasons contributed to the stress need to spur life into intelligence.
• 3.5 billion years of hydrocarbon concentration perfectly delivered at just the right time to drive humanity over the population threshold that sparked the industrial revolution.
• Star death required to produce higher atomic weight elements necessary for life processes.
The list goes on and on.
Bottom line - life is rare and we are rarer still.
Read "Here on Earth" and "The Eerie Silence" for additional insight on this topic.
I agree with Anonymole. Probability dictates that among the possible trillions of extra-solar planets, conditions similar to those, all of those, special circumstances found on earth are bound to be repeated, complete with "guardian" gas giants deflecting extinction-causing comets, thereby allowing evolution to take its course. I think it is probable that other intelligent life has evolved in the universe but that it may indeed be very rare. It is possible or even probable that we may be the only self aware species in our galaxy or even in our local group. I do think, though, that microbial life may be fairly widespread.
I know two things about nature/the universe. The first being they like to form patterns and cycles. I believe that somewhere at least one solar system must have some planet that developed similar to our own, meaning that the planet would have similar distance to the sun, oceans, etc. This would eventually lead to at least single cell organisms that in turn, would cause a domino effect, allowing for the evolution into complex species. The second thing I believe to be true is life always finds a way. Let's review quickly our most dominate theory on how life formed on our planet aka abiogenesis. Back when earth was new the conditions were chaotic, volcanos erupted 24/7, the air was full of different gases and lightning flashed as often as we breath today. It was these conditions that caused amino acids to form. I don't know the exact conditions (too lazy to look them up :P) but the theorized conditions have been replicated in a lab and lo and behold amino acids, the building blocks of life, began to form. The amino acids eventually formed proteins and thus eventually single cell prokaryotic which spawned every species today. My description is the abridge version so i suggest looking it up to know more. Anyway the development of life from inorganic matter corresponds to the law of conservation of energy (energy can neither be created or destroyed). Life is a form of energy, it's just a really long list of changes or conservations from lightning, heat, etc. all the way to complex carbon based life. Because life is a form on energy life finds a way to form. We humans have seen this on earth like life existing in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, sanitation plants, the list goes on and on. Just look it up on PopSci. Life must exist somewhere they might just still be primitive and unable to build any form of transportation or communication like with neanderthals on our planet. I believe life must exist.
-The only way to discover the limits of the impossible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
The first stumbling block in any search for life will always be the basis for comparison. Mankind considers itself the pinnacle of intelligent life. Are we ready to discover that we aren't?
We've been taught in high school science that the stew of primordial earthly oceans, stirred by Zeus, boiled by Vulcan gave rise to life.
One would think that, as we know the formula, we should be able to replicate the this spontaneous experiment and produce life. Alas, it as never been done. Amino acids, chemicals, have been created anew. But that tiny, fractional, magical spark called life has alluded science.
Sure, life finds a way, once life exists. It seems almost unstoppable then, indomitable even. But it has to exist first. That critical event apparently takes a leap beyond anything humans have tried and beyond anything we currently understand.
I too thought the rich amino acid soup mixed with lightening, sun, wind, and shallow shore had already been shown to produce life. This is not the case. Life is just not that easy to create.
"se necesita una poca de gracia." And we do not have it (yet).
@Anonymole,
nice richie valens quote.
_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.
- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri
Lots of nonsens commented here. Just stay out with religiouse speeches and let your brain masters keep controlling you. The only god existing is living in our hands and actions and not on our lipps and bubbles of story telling moarons 3000 years back.
Life being confirmed already and if its only a bacteria of a carbon based environment, thats the only evidence we need. So dont forget anybody that we got to find a large list of conditions before talkin about possible life forms. Carbon based environment is the first and that to be find wherever a similar red blast did cause carbon layers on planets similar to earth. Water and ice is the first indication only so best thing to do is developing carbon detection programmes in Hubble filters and spend the money and efforts where its well spended.
Yet we are banished to 3 dimensional observations and developments, the entire Universe perception and knowledge will crack once we loose these chains. Work on this guys.
Truth is, if an infinitely intelligent, creative, omnipotent designer existed, nothing is impossible.
Similar to finding a watch in the middle of a desert. You have no immediate explanation for why it exist in this part of the world. But Conceptually you know for every design is a designer. We have to understand that the same concept can be easily understood even from somebody who isn't as brilliant. But they tend to be manipulated by those who understand these concepts.
This supreme entity most label God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. This being is everything, the whole of all that is, and is conscious of itself.
Most envision or conceptualize "God" as separate from the physical universe, as not being all species (humans and animals and plants), as existing elsewhere in some far away place, as being of only one gender (Male or Female), as not being all thought, all emotion, all action and all spirit, as in any way divisible, or as anything other than the whole of all that is, one can at best be consciously in touch with only part of God without the complexities intellectual communities create. This concept is not only exclusive for those with an IQ above 125.
It may be impossible for human consciousness to fully realize and understand God for this being and it aspects are different in each religion, which present a view tailored to their own religious points of view.
Point is conceptually aliens can exist organically. I could elaborate but I'll keep it short to not discourage readers.
1.Our technology becomes more advanced and we accomplish commercial space travel and are able to inhabit the moon or mars or any other planet.
2. The earthlings who inhabit this new planet, or land now are creating life of their own. i.e. A couple decides to have a child on Mars. The child is considered a "Martian" (technically) and is born under conditions not natural to earth and these factors can effect these newborn people biologically. Eventually changing them depending on the newly discovered variables.
3. When this "Martian" comes to earth, what is he or she considered? Well an Alien by definition.
Conclusion: Even if Aliens don't exist, the fact remains that the theory exist indicates we have the capacity to realize it giving this theory the necessary energy to manifest organically.
The magic lies in the fact we have an ability to realize whatever our minds can create. This may be an ability we adapted from the supreme designer who uses the same ability to design everything and nothing.
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE! While you humans debate endlessly your realize contradictions exist to show you the complexities of a being more complex than you. Truth is, that being may have his own creator who is even far more complex. If you find that "impossible" then you only know a simple watered down version of "God", or you voluntarily deny this truth for an egotistical reason. We must learn how to use our brains to its fullest capacity and override what has now become a default setting of intelligence and capacity.
Now the real question is: When we encounter other alien life
, how will we react?
Who has the majority share of the decision of what type of relationship we will have with them?(Government, Elitist,or the general human population )
If contact was made possible, this could also indicate a possibility for a new order far higher than our own. Governments could be more universal than we think. ;)
No mention of the Fermi Paradox! I guess that wouldn't sell as many issues.
Even the fact that you are arguing is all inevitable .
To rib2:
Witness what a presidential administration did/tried to do to Dr. Hansens'(Goddard Space Flight Center) climatological research by trying to re-title and soften up the language of his global warming research under the premise that it was government property, and so by that definition the property of the political party in power.
My take is that ALL government research is the property of those who finance it, the American People, unless it correlates to national security. Suppressing extra-terresrial/Mars research just doesn't, in my opinion, qualify as national security.
You're correct in saying that when you limit the minds reviewing the research, you're limiting the truth to be found in the data.
Life on other planets? And finding it in 20 years? That's a pretty bold statement. I sure hope he does for his reputation's sake. But in my opinion technically we've already found life on other planets, or in this case moon. I really don't know why this wasn't a big hit in the news, but before NASA shut down its space program they had discovered water on the MOON. Now of course that is no where close to intelligent life as I'm sure he was referring, but water is the building block of life. Now there's rumors of China in conjunction with several other countries are talking about a 200+ trillion dollar project to build a hotel up there! That would be something, if you're wealthy enough. :)
rlb2, on 10/18/11 at 1:14 pm you wrote in reply to CodeZero "That is good for security reasons if we felt threatened but microbes shouldn't threaten us."
Not physically. However, CodeZero mentioned the need for what he or she called "social tweaking," which you didn't mention in your reply.
But CZ does have a point. About 20 years ago I met a US Air Force three-star general at a social function (I was and am a civilian), and our talk turned to UFO's. eventually he pulled a pen from his pocket and stuck it in front of me, then, pretending I was the President and he was a reporter, asked to to confirm reports that we were engaged in meetings with aliens. I stammered, and he said something like "Exactly. Besides publicly telling the world we can't defend our skies, what will such an announcement do to religions? Some would be proven to be wrong in their claim that life exists only on Earth and was created by God (or whatever name the religion uses for its god or gods)." Then we mulled over the aftermath of the radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" back in the 1930's, which wasn't pretty.
Micro-organisms elsewhere in the universe wouldn't threaten us *physically,* true. But I imagine some number of the devout would suffer severe psychological disorders if they both heard such an announcement and believed it. That second part is necessary; some would simply dismiss it as a mistake or a lie, much the same as some people, and not just religious ones, refuse to accept we've landed humans on the Moon. In this regard, CodeZero is correct.
@picaboo, on 10/19/11 at 5:58 am you wrote, "according to this article > http://www.theallseeingeye.us/Valiant_Thor.html, Mankind has already been found by aliens."
Please. Unfamiliar with the website, I went to it. There, I read the almost certainly delusional claims about "Valiant Thor." (I say "almost" only because I can't DISprove it -- but I don't think you'll find many takers. Anywhere.) Since there isn't any "Contact Us" or "About Us" link there -- nor any other, for that matter, I did a lookup on www.whois.com.
The registrant is a natural health limited partnership in Illinois. I could find no one's name (Earthling or Venusian).
In other words, @picaboo, the website for which you provide a link has a reliability factor so near zero that it makes tabloids such as the "National Inquirer" seem to be as credible as the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
There is definitally life else where in our solar system, galaxy, and universe. the only questions left to us are :"where do we find it? has it found us? how will they react."
The biggest fear is how will the public react?
to us who have already accepted the fact that there is life out there, there will be no problem accepting the fact once we have found it, or once they have found us. but the people who do not accept it, would be in chaos.
there should be an entirely new set of scientists, studying the exoplanetary systems while other astronomors search for the planets. i know it would be splitting one persons job, into a job now for two or more people, but it would be faster and easier to anylise planets that way.