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Are we alone?

By Anthony Ashard

A question that has always fascinated me throughout my entire life and will puzzle me for the rest no doubt, it's looking like it's an answer that's quite hard to fathom.

It's estimated that there are as many as 200,000,000,000 (200 billion) galaxies in the observable universe, but we as yet are unable to see all of them. OK so when technology finally advances enough to allows us to see ever deeper into space, we might then be able to answer the question. Are we alone?

Sufficed to say we are here, so there is a chance that we are not alone, the odds are quite good considering we are discovering new planets around suns every day, in fact in recent times we are finding so many potential life bearing planets, that we are hardly able to keep up with it.

It's estimated that there are between 100 billion to 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone. Times that by the billions of galaxies that we already know of, and life out there seems more and more a realistic possibility.

However ironically there is a little problem that vastly increases the odds of us being alone. That's the fact that we are spinning on the ball of warm mud in a very balanced comfort zone around our sun.

Our somewhat fragile earth has been referred to as the 'Goldilocks' planet. This is because conditions are only just right for life to exist at all here on Earth.

Life is abundant for one main reason, water and lots of it, we have so much of it only because we sit precariously in the middle of a 'comfort zone' around the sun, and if we were just a little further away from the Sun any water would have been completely frozen solid. and on the other end of the scale, just a little closer to the Sun and it would have surely boiled away leaving just a desolate baron cold inhospitable rock much like Mars is now.

I personally think it's a very narrow minded view to go around believing we are completely alone in this universe, and do hope that one day we will peer into an almighty powerful telescope and see a mirror reflection of our Earth. But then what?

Do you have a view on this subject, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Contributor's Note

Can science fiction really prepare us for what may lay ahead?

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I to beleive as you do. I mean not trying to sound like a nut case,But as I truly beleive Im always reading and watching anything that pertains to other life or worlds,needless to say I got caught up in stargatesg1 and
xfiles. Yeah I know! just tv shows right? It doesnt mean it cant make sense.We thik we got all the knowledge of the world,we dont even come close. Good Article.

KKash Feb 15, 2010 08:34

This is a very interesting article. As I go though my daily life I never think of these things. We all just take the earth and our lives for granted but this article made me think.
What is the origin of man and the meaning of life?

Bill Coughlin Feb 15, 2010 08:55

beautiful image. Someday I will take up astrophotography, I have always loved astronomy....Anyway, I agree with your perspective, with billions of stars and billions of planets, its unrealistic to think we are all alone in the universe. Certainly there is other life out there, microbes for sure (as we seem such extreme conditions that they can live in with the extremophiles) but also I would say intelligent life.

lotuspetal Feb 15, 2010 10:21

I feel that it would take supreme arrogance to think that we are the only planet with life or even that we know and comprehend all of the life forms right here on our own planet. Even now we could be unknowingly interacting with entities unseen.

I agree, who's to say they are within our visual spectrum or that we can even communicate with beings that may not even have physical form as we understand it.

There's too many possibilities to suggest we have a good bead on things. On the grand scale of things we are still truly primative, running around destroying the very planet we depend upon.

If they were capable of reaching across the extreme emptiness of space, would they really want to communicate with such a primative violent species - the human race.

I once created a web page about a MLM company called "Big Planet". I added a few related keywords and the page started getting traffic from searches for Planet Mandy. I soon found out that Planet Mandy was the name of a porn star.

I then developed a page about "Planet Mandy is discovered
in the Andromeda Galaxy in the Erhowe Star system" I totally made up the content from my imagination and the page now places on Google for Planet in another Galaxy.

Hopefully any alien on another planet somewhere who is searching the Internet will find me.

biblefreeorg Feb 15, 2010 17:28

Our bodies are made from the same materials, and particles found out there in the universe, too. It is fascinating. Nice article.

carallelworld Feb 15, 2010 23:37

You've done a great job of stimulating the thought process, Anthony.
A very interesting read and way beyond my meager education to answer the guestion.
Keep up the great intels.
Best wishes.
Frederick

Why Thank you Frederick, I'm happy to have been able to provide a small insight into a subject that provokes curiosity in many people, after all we are not alone, how could we be?

I spent a number of confusing years wondering whether my ex-wife was even human and then eventually discovered that she was from the planet Cretin.

My investigations discovered that though that poor planet is permeated by a malevolent ectoplasm called "Love", Cretin contains no intelligent life forms but should be still be space-nuked, just to be sure.

Andrew Goulding Aug 6, 2010 20:13

Beautiful picture. I agree that with so many planets out there the possibility we are not alone is slim to none. Distances being what they are will we ever come in contact with others more advanced than ourselves? hmm. I do love science fiction so Its nice to think about it.

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