milky way may have 60 BILLION habitable worlds

reply to post by Minus

And just think about the species that died BECAUSE we conquered. If we had failed, conditions on earth would not be as they're now. You cannot simply say something like "Oh, the dolphins would be the superior intelligence species! (because they're very smart)" The absence of a dominating homosapien species over the past couple million years would change what happens. It could be that some other homo-family species would have gained dominance and would be slightly different from humans. Maybe dolphins would not be as smart somehow without homosapien to manipulate things. If you go back far enough and no large species ever became productive then maybe ants would?? Maybe ants would be the dominant intelligence species. Or some other bug. Who can know? Either way, BECAUSE they dominate, they'd probably be smarter than the bugs we know today.

What I wanted to say was that intelligence is extremely expensive. It doesn't just happen or exist on its own. It's the product of billions of years of intelligence evolution. And because there's a resource limit, the expression of intelligence best fits a pyramid, from bottom to top.

Considering that we know life could have originated billions of years ago and that many of the stars in our galaxy are old stars, it's not mistaken to think we're not alone in our galaxy. There're apparently billions of super earths within their habitable zones TODAY, but what about in the past couple billion years? Planets that're now uninhabitable may at some point in the past have been habitable.

And I don't think we can say that life can only originate on planets. Maybe moons or comets or in the atmospheres of gas gaints or on dwarf planets or even on rogue planets. Really, we just haven't went out there to find out. We haven't even begun our journey to discover life elsewhere.

Have to say, it's such an exciting time to be alive. When I was in school first learning about space and the universe, the only known planets were the (then) 9 in our solar system. 20 years later and we know of hundreds confirmed, can reasonably speculate that there are billions and billions of not only planets, but potential life supporting planets. It's amazing how much technology has progressed, and is progressing

reply to post by jonnywhite


I agree with you - intelligence in this form was a coincidence, it could also have happened alot sooner or even never happen at all. And intelligence is a huge subject in itsef and can be interpreted in many ways, we usually only compare it to our own intelligence though, to determine what we think is superior intelligence, buts that off topic

Yes i also think that life can originated from other places than only planets, as long it contains stabile conditions for the lifeform to survive any place is possible.

Its goin to be very exting when we find the first microbe or other lifeforms - im pretty sure we will one day

Wow, that is Fascinating.
If only all the nations work together to find those planets.
But it wont happen.

reply to post by ProphetZoroaster


We dont need all nations in the world to find habital zones in the universe - we allready found enough to know there wil be alot more, and we cant even benefit from that knowlegde before we learn other ways to travel there.

But it is exiting to know that we just recently reached the lowest form of technology and we allready search for other worlds - so if there are other species with superior tech and they are curious as we are, they may have searched alot longer than we, and found us.

If humanity survives long enough to inner-stellar, we won't want to just visit the planets where other civilizations are found.

Heck, I bet we would be just as quick to visit ANY unoccupied planet with a habitable atmosphere already in tact.
That way we wouldn't have to compete for any resources found there.

Sure, we would check out other civs too, but I bet we would engage in lengthy diplomatic talks before any open contacts were made.

A couple other things:
1. We should turn our telescopes towards areas in the galaxy where there is no known gravitational pull, or perhaps those areas where gravitation is more or less equal from both sides and start looking for sub-space telecommunication devices.
2. If we ever develop our own sub-space communication system, would it be possible to collaborate with an alien civilization and build matching star gates, teleportation devices, or portals to bridge the gap in space that way?
What about holographic projectors?

Originally posted by JayinAR
If humanity survives long enough to inner-stellar, we won't want to just visit the planets where other civilizations are found.

Heck, I bet we would be just as quick to visit ANY unoccupied planet with a habitable atmosphere already in tact.
That way we wouldn't have to compete for any resources found there.

Sure, we would check out other civs too, but I bet we would engage in lengthy diplomatic talks before any open contacts were made.

A couple other things:
1. We should turn our telescopes towards areas in the galaxy where there is no known gravitational pull, or perhaps those areas where gravitation is more or less equal from both sides and start looking for sub-space telecommunication devices.
2. If we ever develop our own sub-space communication system, would it be possible to collaborate with an alien civilization and build matching star gates, teleportation devices, or portals to bridge the gap in space that way?
What about holographic projectors?

I agree, we woud go to nearest habitable world, life or not

No matter what we would most likely meet a hostile enviroment, and only be able to move arround in spacesuits.
Just because water is able to be liguid, dosnt mean we are able to breathe there or not be exposed to dangerous microbes and such - not to speak of the atmospheric differences.
There are many considerations we have to take before even engage in very difficult communication with a different species. And IF we ever find a intelligent species there are good odds that they will be scared of us, shoot our spaceships down and back engineer it at desolate locations
We would propably have to fly arround invisble as possible a take samples (abductions if it live organisms) and maybe just have contact to the most military evolved specie/nation - Ring a bell?

I have heard it mentioned before, (don't ask me where, as i can't remember) that if the dinosaurs hadn't of gone extinct, then the velociraptor would have evolved to be intelligent and the dominant species on the planet.... they where quite intelligent, had social structure and a supposed language of sorts, who knows...maybe all they where lacking was being sapient (knowing of their own existence, "I think, therefore I am!) You understand what I mean? It is said that true intelligence is hallmarked by knowing of your own existence, or to put it another way....being self aware!
PEACE!!