Possible life found 140 light years away

Even if the odds are one in a billion.

I've heard everything from 100 billion stars to 300 billion stars in our galaxy alone.

Now consider 100 to 200 billion galaxies.

I'm guessing not every star has planets around them, but some had, some have, some will have, and some will never have.

If the universe has no other life in it, imagine what humanity could do with all those resources :)
 
gtb1943 said:
So basically you are saying that we are so smart and knowledgeable that the question is settled.

This is the height of intellectual arrogance.

History has proven you wrong again and again.
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Yup, that's settled. For you and for me and everyone in our time. The earth always was a sphere, some people just didnt know about it. Just like faster than lightspeed in a space ship never was possible. Some just hadnt heard about it. Einstein was smarter than you guys give him credit for.

nobody said:
Unless you bypass Relativity by bending space-time. Like using an Alcubierre Drive (aka Warp drive) if we can figure it out. It's mathematically possible. Right now, the concept requires negative mass, but they're constantly working on the idea. So you might be mistaken by saying it won't be in a space ship traveling faster than light. A ship utilizing warp would indeed travel faster than light to an outside observer.
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It wouldnt look like a space ship was going in a straight line from a to be like a train would be passing you. That's what I'm saying here. Of course I can imagine us REACHING far solar systems by using some kind of technology not known to us yet. I never claimed that wont be the case. It just wont look like it looks like in Star Trek, as if a shippasses you in a straight line, just faster than light. That is simply not possible.

As far as the warp bubble goes, sure, why not? The ship just wouldn't “fly” through space in the usual sense though. Instead, it would create a kind of warp bubble, contracting spacetime in front and expanding it behind. The ship itself remains stationary relative to its bubble—it's the space around it that moves. So to an outside observer, there's no traditional movement across a trajectory.

Because no information can travel faster than light outside the bubble, an external observer wouldn’t see the ship approaching. It might simply vanish from point A and suddenly appear at point B—no in-between phase. Or it would even appear at the destination before disappearing at the start to an observer in the "middle". I think those are the scenarios that are fun to discuss. :)
 
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Streifenkarl said:
Yup, that's settled. For you and for me and everyone in our time. The earth always was a sphere, some people just didnt know about it. Just like faster than lightspeed in a space ship never was possible. Some just hadnt heard about it. Einstein was smarter than you guys give him credit for.


It wouldnt look like a space ship was going in a straight line from a to be like a train would be passing you. That's what I'm saying here. Of course I can imagine us REACHING far solar systems by using some kind of technology not known to us yet. I never claimed that wont be the case. It just wont look like it looks like in Star Trek, as if a shippasses you in a straight line, just faster than light. That is simply not possible.

As far as the warp bubble goes, sure, why not? The ship just wouldn't “fly” through space in the usual sense though. Instead, it would create a kind of warp bubble, contracting spacetime in front and expanding it behind. The ship itself remains stationary relative to its bubble—it's the space around it that moves. So to an outside observer, there's no traditional movement across a trajectory.

Because no information can travel faster than light outside the bubble, an external observer wouldn’t see the ship approaching. It might simply vanish from point A and suddenly appear at point B—no in-between phase. Or it would even appear at the destination before disappearing at the start to an observer in the "middle". I think those are the scenarios that are fun to discuss. :)
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As far as I know, Einstein never tried to find a way around FTL speed, but if he were around today, he'd be our best chance...or Newton, after he was caught up on everything that's happened between then and now.

Einstein did theorize wormholes, but they rely on space being folded in such a way as to actually be beneficial, and with the level of technology they know about today, it would require more power than could possibly be created, just to open one big enough to fit through, much less sustain.
 
gtb1943 said:
Yup, that's settled.

There is no such thing as settled science

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...instein-shattered-the-myth-of-settled-science

https://www.denverpost.com/2017/05/05/keegan-settled-science/

https://www.timesrepublican.com/opinion/your-view/2018/12/theres-no-such-thing-as-settled-science/

https://jhall.io/archive/2021/12/27/science-is-never-settled/
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All scientific statements should come with a caveat of "as we know it today." However, so many scientists and science communicators state things as immutable, unchangeable facts, even without concrete evidence to support it.
 
Sarek said:
Even if the odds are one in a billion.

I've heard everything from 100 billion stars to 300 billion stars in our galaxy alone.

Now consider 100 to 200 billion galaxies.

I'm guessing not every star has planets around them, but some had, some have, some will have, and some will never have.

If the universe has no other life in it, imagine what humanity could do with all those resources :)
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Sure, but what we see now was often millions of years ago, etcetera. Not in present..

You obviously get that. But it's just something that gets overlooked.
 
nobody said:
All scientific statements should come with a caveat of "as we know it today." However, so many scientists and science communicators state things as immutable, unchangeable facts, even without concrete evidence to support it.
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I think most (or at least the ones I've seen) do say things that way, but expect the layman to understand that the caveats are givens.

All the scientists and science communicators I know of seem willing to admit that theories and concepts must change, when new evidence or information is discovered.
 
Pass2Run said:
Sure, but what we see now was often millions of years ago, etcetera. Not in present..

You obviously get that. But it's just something that gets overlooked.
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Yes, I wonder how much of what is seen is actually still there. Some of those faraway galaxies probably are gone. If some of those galaxies are gone what is in that space, dark matter? Does a galaxy with a black hole at its center get completely consumed by the black hole or does some material go on to start making a new galaxy? All in all there’s lots of galaxies still in existence unless they’re seeing some sort of mirrored effect and the universe is a lot smaller than they say.
 
Sarek said:
Yes, I wonder how much of what is seen is actually still there. Some of those faraway galaxies probably are gone. If some of those galaxies are gone what is in that space, dark matter? Does a galaxy with a black hole at its center get completely consumed by the black hole or does some material go on to start making a new galaxy? All in all there’s lots of galaxies still in existence unless they’re seeing some sort of mirrored effect and the universe is a lot smaller than they say.
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The James Webb telescope was supposed to see the edge of the universe.

Nope.

There's more to it than we even begin to know, imo.
 
Runwildboys said:
I think most (or at least the ones I've seen) do say things that way, but expect the layman to understand that the caveats are givens.

All the scientists and science communicators I know of seem willing to admit that theories and concepts must change, when new evidence or information is discovered.
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Some, like Neil Degrasse Tyson, don't even bother. They state that stuff as fundamental facts of the universe and come across as arrogant.
 
Sarek said:
Yes, I wonder how much of what is seen is actually still there. Some of those faraway galaxies probably are gone. If some of those galaxies are gone what is in that space, dark matter? Does a galaxy with a black hole at its center get completely consumed by the black hole or does some material go on to start making a new galaxy? All in all there’s lots of galaxies still in existence unless they’re seeing some sort of mirrored effect and the universe is a lot smaller than they say.
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Well, the farthest we can see is 13.5 billion light years away. So its probably a safe bet a fair bit of what we can see no longer exists.
 
Streifenkarl said:
It's actually not that "uncertain" about FTL travel. This video explains it best imo.



So nothing will beat Einstein in the future. I'm not saying we will never go places, but whatever the way of reaching far away solar systems will be, it won't be in a space ship traveling faster than light.
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I am no expert on the subject, but I thought the idea is to bend space so instead of increasing the speed to get from point a to point b, we bend space to bring point b closer to point a reducing the time to make the trip?
 
The physics involved in this discussion is way above my understanding but I do have two thoughts about human beings.

I think we struggle to understand or accept the concept of infinity. Everything has to have some kind of boundary. We cannot bring the thought of infinity into our everyday thinking. We say the universe was not here forever. It started somehow, and it will collapse and end somehow. Why can't it just keep going on forever and ever? How can we speak for a universe so large we cannot observe most of it? Our understanding of the universe today is mostly theoretical.

Likewise we struggle with the opposite in the context of infinity. Why can't there be only one planet with intelligent life, and it is us? I get it. If the probability of intelligent life is 1 in a trillion and there are infinite planets, then for every trillion planets there should be 1 with intelligent life, and there are infinite trillions of planets so there are infinite planets with intelligent life. Right? But we are talking about probabilities and without knowing how many other planets are the home to intelligent life we are guessing at the probabilities. And probabilities are not certainties. They always leave room for the possibility of alternative outcomes. In an infinite number of universes (why assume there is only 1?), there has to be one with no intelligent life and some with only one planet with intelligent life, right? Maybe we are in the universe with only one planet with intelligent life? That is a possibility, isn't it?

And we have to consider that large parts of observable space are extremely hostile and unstable. Earth happens to be situated in one of the more stable parts of the galaxy. This has to factor into how we managed to survive long enough to become intelligent.

The last thing is, we do not know what we do not know. Do we know 50% of everything? 1%? My guess is we are closer to 1% than 50% by a lot. How much will our thinking change when we get to 2% or 10%.
 
Creeper said:
The physics involved in this discussion is way above my understanding but I do have two thoughts about human beings.

I think we struggle to understand or accept the concept of infinity. Everything has to have some kind of boundary. We cannot bring the thought of infinity into our everyday thinking. We say the universe was not here forever. It started somehow, and it will collapse and end somehow. Why can't it just keep going on forever and ever? How can we speak for a universe so large we cannot observe most of it? Our understanding of the universe today is mostly theoretical.

Likewise we struggle with the opposite in the context of infinity. Why can't there be only one planet with intelligent life, and it is us? I get it. If the probability of intelligent life is 1 in a trillion and there are infinite planets, then for every trillion planets there should be 1 with intelligent life, and there are infinite trillions of planets so there are infinite planets with intelligent life. Right? But we are talking about probabilities and without knowing how many other planets are the home to intelligent life we are guessing at the probabilities. And probabilities are not certainties. They always leave room for the possibility of alternative outcomes. In an infinite number of universes (why assume there is only 1?), there has to be one with no intelligent life and some with only one planet with intelligent life, right? Maybe we are in the universe with only one planet with intelligent life? That is a possibility, isn't it?

And we have to consider that large parts of observable space are extremely hostile and unstable. Earth happens to be situated in one of the more stable parts of the galaxy. This has to factor into how we managed to survive long enough to become intelligent.

The last thing is, we do not know what we do not know. Do we know 50% of everything? 1%? My guess is we are closer to 1% than 50% by a lot. How much will our thinking change when we get to 2% or 10%.
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excellent post
I know the concept of infinity to me is simply something I cannot really grasp; I doubt few can.
I believe truly sentient and sapient life is extremely rare. When you look at what it took for us to evolve here, no other conclusion is currently valid.

But as you said, trillions and maybe quadrillions and so on possibilities is also incredibly hard for our species to grasp.

Which is why so many cling to narrow and limited views. It is comforting and familiar.
 
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