• Question: Do you think we will ever come in contact with beings from another planet?

    Asked by numskullz1000 to Carol, Ellie, John, Philip, Rebecca on 27 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Philip Glasson

      Philip Glasson answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      We Just Don’t Know !
      .
      is there any one close enough to ever meet? (the universes is a big place)
      is there any one with the technology to reach us or talk to us from a distance?.
      is there any one out there at all?
      are there any planets capable of sustaining them out there,
      and even if there is ..
      was life on this planet such a lucky fluke,

      I mean.
      Is life sooo unlikely that the change of it happen twice in one universe means that we are alone ?
      So the answer is
      .
      May Be,
      .
      But we will have to wait and see…..

    • Photo: John Welford

      John Welford answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Hi numskullz1000, that kind of question is all about probability and there are a few different things to take into account:

      If we think about the conditions required to support life on another planet then they are very rare, so the probability of one planet supporting life is a very small number.
      But if we think about the number of planets available, then that is a really large number.

      A very large number times a very small number could be anything really, especially as we aren’t very sure what the numbers actually are!

      Then you need to take into account time – the chance of life developing at the same time as humans are around, which isn’t very long compared to the age of the universe!

      This is a more basic version of something called the Drake equation, which tries to answer the same question. If you’re interested the full equation is here:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

      I think in our lifetimes the answer is probably not. But over the whole course of human existence… maybe…

    • Photo: Carol White

      Carol White answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      I think we’ll definitely find “something” – but I can’t imagine them being “beings” or human in nature. It might be something that sounds boring, like bacteria, but even then it’s exciting to think that another planet can even host a life form!

    • Photo: Eleanor Turpin

      Eleanor Turpin answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      When the first space exploration missions in the 1960’s left Earth, great care was taken to make sure no microbes were on the suface of the probes. However, later missions such as the Mars rover less care was taken so there might be microbes from Earth living on Mars – so life on another planet in one sense!

      But intelligent beings? I think the others are right in saying no one can really know – yes the Drake equation could be used to calculate the probabilities but no one knows what numbers to use in it. To me the thought of meeting intelligent aliens is both incredibly exciting, but also very terrifying.

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