• Question: Are we alone in the universe?

    Asked by Einstein to Sarah, Connor, Jillian, Lidunka, Steven on 14 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by lauren, GINGER NINJA, Hannah, 859frcc45, Eva, senara, wolf spirit ( Ox0).
    • Photo: Lidunka Vocadlo

      Lidunka Vocadlo answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      Almost certainly not. However, the form of other life in the universe is almost certainly very different to our own, evolving under different conditions, possibly not even relying on water……

    • Photo: Connor Macrae

      Connor Macrae answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      I wish I could answer this with certainty! Thing is we simply do not know – this doesn’t mean we are not trying to find out. The search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) mission has a huge number of radio arrays constantly scanning the sky for any sort of signal that might have originated from some other-worldly intelligent life – though so far space has been very quiet! The problem is that if someone in another galaxy did send out a signal, from for example the closest other galaxy to us, Andromeda, the signal would take 2.5 million years to reach us!

      Scientists have tried to make an estimation for the likelihood of life existing somewhere in the universe using the Drake equation, though this gives estimates between 2 and 280’000’000 civilisations in our galaxy.

      The question can boil down to a simple logical argument, that the conditions for life must exist somewhere else, but we may never know it.

    • Photo: Jillian Scudder

      Jillian Scudder answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      I hope not! But unless we find it within our solar system – say on the surface of Mars, or in Europa’s oceans, (it could happen!) the odds of us contacting it are very low – every other planet is just astoundingly far away, so any communications, even at the speed of light, would take hundreds or thousands of years, assuming they’re even within our solar system!

    • Photo: Steven Thomson

      Steven Thomson answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      I think most scientists would say we’re probably not alone in the universe, but nobody knows for sure! There are just so so so many other galaxies out there, other stars, other planets…maybe even other whole universes. In all of this vastness, there’s a good chance some other form of life exists. I hope we find it one day!

      Connor’s already beaten me to mentioning both SETI and the Drake Equation, the mathematical way to estimate how many alien species might be out there, so I won’t dwell on them. Instead, I’d like to leave you with one of my favourite quotes from a brilliant man named Carl Sagan, one of the founders of the SETI programme:

      “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”

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