Is there likely to be any other intelligent life in the galaxy or even universe?

[6EQUJ5]

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[Neil_McDonalds_dick]

There may well be 500 billion stars (suns) in our Milky Way galaxy. The average number of planets orbiting each star could be maybe 8 or more. There may well be 2 trillion galaxies in the universe.

There must be other intelligent life out there, indeed numerous different civilisations throughout the universe. But it could be that no matter how advanced the technology of any of them becomes, the various civilisations could be too far apart to even detect the existence of the nearest neighbouring civilisation. I find that thought a tad spooky, as though it had been planned and executed that way from 'seeding'.

[Psaw]

Of course, they are in the skies now. Galaxies that were detectable a hundred years ago are now not detectable, they have past the horizon in which we can see. But they still exist, and are travelling away from us faster than the speed of light. The Universe is infinite. If we are able to develop interstellar travel, we can only visit our local group of galaxies because of the time it takes to go anywhere.

Local galaxies will coaleasce into a big one, and other galaxies will not be seen due to distance. Life strangely will be easier to come into being, but life will think its galaxy is the only one.

The Universe is truly awe inspiring, beyond our wildest imaginings. As is god. If the Universe is infinite, and it looks like it, so are you.

[Neil_McDonalds_dick]

These galaxies are moving further away because the universe is expanding. Theoretically, at its edge the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. The nearer you get to the edge of the universe the greater is its rate of expansion. Nothing else can travel faster than the speed of light and nothing else will ever be able to travel faster than the speed of light. The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. To give an idea of an awesome distance, it would take light, travelling at the speed of light, 105,700 years to travel across the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy, which is one of at least 2 trillion galaxies.

We do not know the size of the universe because the furthest away light that has reached us, travelling at the speed of light, has been travelling for 13.8 billion years, the time of the creation of the universe. We know nothing beyond the distance implied by that.

[cocopops61]

[QUOTE=Neil_McDonalds_dick;39530952]These galaxies are moving further away because the universe is expanding. Theoretically, at its edge the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. The nearer you get to the edge of the universe the greater is its rate of expansion. Nothing else can travel faster than the speed of light and nothing else will ever be able to travel faster than the speed of light. The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. To give an idea of an awesome distance, it would take light, travelling at the speed of light, 105,700 years to travel across the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy, which is one of at least 2 trillion galaxies.

We do not know the size of the universe because the furthest away light that has reached us, travelling at the speed of light, has been travelling for 13.8 billion years, the time of the creation of the universe. We know nothing beyond the distance implied by that.[/Q



THAT is ****ing mental if it's true as we see ourselves as an intelligent species but we are probably just insects compared others out there

[griff]

If the universe is infinite, how can it have an edge??

[Neil_McDonalds_dick]

We do not know the universe to be infinite. We can only 'see' as far as the source of the light which has reached us in the 13.8 billion years of the existence of the universe, this light travelling at the speed of 186,282 miles per second. We know f*uck all of that which is further away than that implied distance.

In astronomy there are names for very big numbers. The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is 93 million miles, it is known as an Astronomical Unit. Astronomers sometimes refer to very large distances as an appropriate number of AUs. Pluto is 33.062788 AUs from Earth, that is 33.062788 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

A light year is the distance that light can travel in a year at the speed of 186,282 miles per second. The Trappist-1 star system (star and 7 orbiting planets) is 39.46 light years from Earth. That is the distance of the star Trappist-1. All its 7 planets are much nearer to it than our Sun's closest planet (Mercury) is to our Sun such that Trappist-1's furthermost orbiting planet takes 19 days to orbit it. Earth takes 365.25 days to orbit our Sun.

Our Sun is 8 light minutes from Earth.

[Neil_McDonalds_dick]

Yes, the speed of light can be exceeded but only in nature. As far as we currently know it will never be possible for beings to create anything that moves faster than the speed of light.

For time travel there are scientists theorising that travel into the future is possible but even these few folk regard travelling into the past as more than difficult.

Of course a relatively prosaic method of travelling into the future would be to get your body frozen with the appropriate frozen fluids and before doing so leave instructions for either the specific time or circumstances of your thawing out, i.e. when a cure has been found for cancer. There are stories of folk who were terminally ill who have done this but as yet there is no news of anyone having been revived.

[griff]

So, if it has an edge, it must be contained within something which is big enough for the expansion. Is that container infinite?

[Neil_McDonalds_dick]

So, if it has an edge, it must be contained within something which is big enough for the expansion. Is that container infinite?

That is what I have thought, if you could stand at the edge of the universe and look outwards what would you see?

Astrophysicists say that the universe has an edge and is expanding, so your point is well made. We define the universe as 'everything' so how can it expand and what can it expand into? Personally, I have a problem with 'infinite' in this context. 'So incredibly large that for all practical purposes we may regard it as infinite' is as far as I can go on this.

This is such a profound question that I suspect that it could only be answered by the likes of Steve Pattison.