The planet is filled with life, but is there life on another earth-like planet orbiting another sun? Space is very big to us, but from our point of view it starts with our solar system. According to Space.com “our solar system is estimated to be born a little after 9 billion years after the big bang.” The big bang is when the universe was thought to be born. Going further out past our solar system we call it a galaxy. In our galaxy there are more than “100 billion stars”. Our sun is approximately “25,000 light-years from the galactic core.” This is just our galaxy. There are so many more galaxy’s out there we don’t even know about, but just talking about ours, I know there has to be life on another earth-like planet.
I definitely believe that there is life on another planet. Just looking at the history of this planet makes me believe. The first sign of life as we know was dinosaurs. They were here before any human life was walking the planet. That evidence alone convinces me that out of one billion other stars there has to be a few million planets with water and oxygen. The elements...
Finding life in our solar system could potentially answer the questions humanity has been asking for thousands of years. Sarah Seager, a professor at MIT, mentioned some of these thought provoking questions, “why are we here? Why does our universe exist? How did Earth form and evolve? How and why did life originate and populate our planet?” Answers to these questions could give humanity a deeper understanding of who we are and what our place in the universe is. Steven Dick believes that humanity has “… deep psychological yearnings for companionship, superior wisdom, or ‘an ineradicable desire to see the skies filled with life’.” Those opposed may argue that a biological universe will have little effect on humanity’s understanding of our place in the universe because a biological universe simply does not exist. One may argue that life is exceedingly complex and the odds of conditions being just right for the production and the sustainment of life are slim. Our civilization may have managed to beat the odds, but many its unlikely to for this to occur elsewhere in our solar system. The proof to back this argument is the N =1 equation. The only solid evidence we have proves that only one planet has beaten these insurmountable odds and produced life. While this argument makes logical sense, relying solely on evidence we have at the moment, takes our focus away from the
Are we alone in the Universe? This has been the big question all semester. We know that life can develop in the universe because of our presence here, but there is no simple definition of life. There is an essential characteristic of life and that is the ability to reproduce. Dr. Frank Drake developed the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence). Drake believed if extraterrestrial civilization were going to communicate with us, this would be the signal. Not every star is home to an intelligent, communicative civilization, but what keeps SETI going is the idea that perhaps some solar star is. To guide the SETI, the drake equation was established. (N=R*fp ne fl fi L) It is an
“I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime” was said by Buzz Aldrin, a NASA astronaut. The former American aeronaut from Montclair, New Jersey believes that since Mars does exist, it is waiting to be reached by humans. When this would happen, he says that the human race would “evolve into a two-planet species.” Present day Mars has a lot of canyons, mountains and volcanoes. Even though the surface is Mars is very old, scientists learned about different younger rift valleys, plains, hills and ridges. According to recent reports, there were lakes and rivers, along with an ocean billions of years ago. The low temperatures on the planet cause there to be polar ice caps and frozen water present. Scientists continue to notice several discoveries on the planet that lead them to think there was once life on the planet. Different clues have scientists wanting to find out about even more. Many scientists in the past few centuries have been curious if life on Mars is possible or if it has ever been before.
"And O-lan in the house was not idle. With her own hands she lashed the mats to the rafters and took earth from the fields and mixed it with water and mended the walls of the house, and she built again the oven and filled the holes in the floor that the rain had washed."
The existence of life – Aliens, beyond our planet has been a controversial topic for several centuries, and is a debatable issue even today in the 21st century. What is our topic you may ask? Aliens, Do, Exist. According to theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, it would be improbable for life not to exist somewhere other than Earth. This is a bold claim, but there is evidence to support this statement. The evidence we seek is in the many Alien occurrences we have experienced throughout human history.
It is without a doubt that the most fascinating thing about space is the possibility of life elsewhere beside Earth. It is estimated that the Milky Way Galaxy itself contains about 300 billion stars. Each star contains planets and some planets might even have moons. With these findings, the question is no longer whether life exists elsewhere. The probability that Earth is the only place where life exists in the universe is far too slim. NASA has identified many planets that have similar conditions to Earth but most of these planets are hundreds of light years away so traveling there to find out if there’s any living organism is not easy. Luckily, scientific evidences have pointed out that one of the moons of Jupiter, Europa, could be one of the places where life can exist. If the theories proposed by astronomers about Europa are true, life on Europa might not even be entirely different than life near the bottom of Earth’s oceans.
It is true that we have no evidence of intelligent life beyond earth, but to
Today, USA. “NASA: 50 Planets may Support Life.” Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Feb 03 2011. ProQuest. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
Is there such thing as life outside of Earth? The building blocks of life are carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Those ingredients condense to form all living things, new stars and even new planets! So, who’s to say those ingredients didn’t form other life on other planets? Think about how vast outer space is. There are millions and millions of other planets, stars and galaxies! It’s not that far out there to think that there might be other life in space, in fact, some people even have stone hard evidence that supports the idea of “aliens”. I personally believe there is such thing as extraterrestrials, and I believe they have visited earth before. As a child, I remember my dad and I would sit around all afternoon watching alien documentaries or shows about people hunting aliens and searching for UFOs. When it comes to aliens people have so many questions; have aliens been to earth before? Are they currently living on earth? Are they controlling us? Does the government know? If so, are they hiding it from the public? There are so many questions you can ask but, in order to answer them, you have to
I feel there must be extraterrestrial intelligence. Even if not in our galaxy, in the universe somewhere. Someone once said, "Absence of proof, is not proof of absence." I think he is correct. While we do not know that aliens exist, we do not that they do not exist. Considering the many UFO sightings, most of them are probably conjured, but at least one had to have really happened because the idea is too crazy to be thought of out of nowhere. Some scientists argue that the chances of alien intelligence are slim since the circumstances that produced life were all just strange coincidences, all the same circumstances happening somewhere else is extremely unlikely. I think it is just arrogance to assume we are the only intelligent life in the universe.
In conclusion, numerous examples have been provided to prove the fact that we are not alone and that extraterrestrial life exists in our Universe. The Roswell Incident, the Sumerians, and scientific knowledge have all attributed to this fact. Although we have not discovered definitive proof of extraterrestrial life, science has speculated that over the course of the next ten years, we will have made contact with alien life. We will no longer be alone on this earth, the real question however, is what do you believe?
While this idea may seem straight out of a science fiction movie, some evidence suggests that an extraterrestrial origin of life may not be such impossible idea.
A galaxy, also called a nebula, consists of billions of stars, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter which are all bound to form a massive cloud in which we live in. Although it cannot be very well explained, dark matter makes up at least 90% of a galaxy’s mass. Galaxies also contain billions upon billions of stars and their diameter can range from 1,500 to 300,000 light years. That’s huge! The Milky Way, the galaxy in which we live in, is one of about 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Our Sun is one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, and our eight planets revolve around this star in only a tiny part of our galaxy. “The Earth’s solar system is believed to exist very close to the Galaxy’s galactic plane, due to the fact that the Milky Way essentially divides the night sky into two virtually equal hemispheres” ("All About the Milky"). It definitely makes people second guess the fact of there being life on other planets.
One of the most common unanswered questions scientists find themselves asking is "Is there life on other planets?" Since the first famously documented UFO sighting in 1947, the idea of extra-terrestrial life has been debated almost non-stop. The subject has inspired many TV programs, such as The X-Files, and films (Mars Attacks, Independence Day, and the Men in Black films to name but a few). Scientists have come up with many new ideas and ways of trying to either prove or disprove the existence of life elsewhere.
...ws radiation from the sun to expose the surface of the planet, adding to environment changes. If life exists on Mars today, it is most likely hiding beneath the surface. Over the past four billion years Earth has had many rocks blown from the surface of Mars, after much research, scientists say that of the thirty-four meteorites, three have the potential to carry evidence of past life on Mars (Carey, 2006). Researches have gathered evidence and continue to explore for life outside of Earth. Earth has provided these scientists with enough knowledge to understand the components needed to sustain life, therefore any research found is compared to the knowledge already understood about life on Earth. Earth is home to billions of plants, animals, bacteria and all types of living things, it is where human beings have evolved and adapted making this planet our home.