Quote:
Originally Posted by lousybassplayer  Bordering on impossible. |
or bordering on common.
we don't have the technology to measure anything meaningfully linked to the existence of any kind of life beyond the range of the oort cloud. shoot, we can't even say definitively that our -own- solar system isn't a binary system, as per the recent discovery of evidence reinforcing the possible existence of the nemisis/tyche brown dwarf ~40,000 au's from the sun.
nothing we've transmitted into space can extend far beyond the oort cloud, either, and maintain its integrity due to background radiation/noise from the sun. it'd be just as effective for us to fire a laser-pointer out into space from orbit and expect folks to see it when looking at us (and effectively looking at the sun).
even if all the sum total of human electronic communications from the very first wireless transmission were able to be amplified to a level sufficient to overpower the background noise from the sun, they'd only be about 100 light years, at most, from the earth by now - that hardly covers more than 100 stars total.
in an -observable- universe consisting of more than 10^11 galaxies, each consisting of, on average, 10^11 stars each, for a very rough estimate of 10^21 stars, over an estimated volume (of the observable universe) of approx 3.4 x10^33 -cubic lightyears-, or about 3.4 x 10^81 cubic meters, to attempt to say anything definitive about something of which we have -=1=- data sample with which to use as a foundation is very unscientific.
the truth is, there is no scientific or statistical basis for saying "it's bordering on impossible", since all we have is one data point with which to extrapolate our theories, and there are many accepted scientific theories, and paradigms, which point instead to a universe teeming with life, but one which we will, for at least the forseeable future, be limited from experiencing.
considering distances measured even in just the 100's of lightyears (a miniscule distance on even the interstellar, let alone intergalactice, scale) are currently impossible for us to scientifically conceive of travelling, (or at the very least travelling near enough to enable detailed investigation), the likelihood of any lifeforms beyond whatever might possibly be discovered in our own solar system being actually -verified- anytime in the next century is very low.
just as the environment is inhospitable and unfriendly outside of our earth's atmosphere for humans, and how it increases in inhospitality beyond the earth's magnetic field, so to does the limit of the sun's radiation (i.e. around the outer edges of the oort cloud) protect our solar system from the even more inhospitible and unfriendly environment beyond.
and then there's the required energy output to power a ship, even to the closest star. many orders of magnitude higher than any other single power generation event/project humanity has ever been a part of, more on the order of the entire energy output of the -planet-, to power a single ship to get to alpha centauri in a single lifetime.
moral of the story? to say it's bordering on impossible that there is any other life in the universe has no scientific basis. to say that, instead, we may someday be able to verify, or even interract with, that life, at least if it resides beyond the bounds of our own solar system, is highly unlikely, given what we currently know.
Hang on to your beliefs! Here comes science!
