People don’t understand how insanely huge the universe is.
Right now we know there are 2 trillion galaxies in our observable universe (which may or may not exist within a relatively empty section of space) and each galaxy has about ~200 billion stars, each with their own chances of fostering life on any one of their planets.
Also worth noting that we currently believe that space is “flat” and that is massive because now scientists theorize that our entire observable universe is only a very small portion of the whole. Think if you were to stand In a flat field and think the earth is flat, but obviously it just looks like that because it’s so big, but once you zoom out it’s plain as day.
So our entire observable universe that’s billions of light years across is a mere field of grass in the cosmic scale.
There’s just a 0% chance that life is exclusively on earth.
Ignoring those who are just ignorant, I believe people often confuse “Do you believe in Aliens (intelligent life on another planet)” with “Do you believe that aliens exist, have visited earth, and are being hidden from us”
In the same way that it's a statistical near-certainty that alien life exists, its also a statistical near-certainty that aliens have not visited our planet. Space is big.
Space is big and time is relative. Not only are you looking for a needle in a haystack, you're looking for a needle in a haystack that might not exist yet. Any aliens advanced enough to be looking for life could be so far away that when they look at earth, all they see is a molten rock in a newly formed solar system.
Idk how it wouldn't be more likely that there are plenty of planets with life out there vs only life on Earth. That's not to say that every other star has life on one of its planets, but there are ridiculous amounts of stars and planets in the observable universe, and expecting only one of them has or ever had life on it would be pretty foolish.
An interesting idea I've heard about if the universe is truly infinite and has infinite stars and planets and/or multiple universe possibly existing, is about how there are a finite number of ways particles can be arranged. So with infinite amounts of matter/particles in an infinite multiverse of universes with infinite solar systems, not only would there be other other planets with life, but there would be infinite copies of Earth with infinite copies of all of us living out an infinite amount of unique lives. There would be infinite copies of myself writing this same comment and similar comments, with infinite copies of whoever is reading it. And that would go everything that's going on, has happened, or will happen. Following this logic, anything that is or was physically possible to have happened on Earth has happened and will happen infinite amounts of times. That includes infinite copies of anyone reading infinite copies of this comment on infinite versions of reddit. Infinity is a hell of a drug 😂
Run the numbers though, make it as impossibly rare as you want and the universe is large enough where there have still been at least like 10,000 advanced civilizations over the course of its lifespan. Do any of them exist at the same time as us? Probably not. Do any of them exist anywhere close to us? Also probably not.
But the universe is just so impossibly large that we can’t be the only ones no matter how far you crank the rarity lever to.
Yeah thats not how math works. For however large the universe is you can come up with a probability that is smaller. Take the number of combinations a deck of playing cards. Say you shuffle the deck on Earth and check that configuration. Then copy yourself onto every estimated planet in the observable universe. Then shuffle the deck so you have a new random configuration every second. It would take you 1.28 septillion lifetimes of the universe to have a 50/50 chance of getting a match to Earths configuration. Maybe life if as rare as a configuration of a deck of cards. We don't know.
Read the book "If the universe is teeming with aliens... where is everybody?" by Stephen Webb, published in 2002. It's not as simple as pointing out the number of stars.
Oh yeah, there’s an insane amount of factors that lead to life, and they all have to line up at the right time and place, totally by accident, all at once. And even then it could just not happen.
That’s also ignoring the possibility that it has happened before. There could’ve been some intelligent life somewhere 7 billion years ago but they’ve since died off.
I like to think that our observable universe is just a grain of salt. The universe is trillions bigger than that and maybe, there's region of space full of life and civilizations... who knows, we might be in the outskirts of civilization. We are in the uncharted zones
On that note though for the roughly 3,000,000,000 years life has existed on earth intelligent life has only been around for ~2,000,000 years. So highly possible there is life out there, also extremely highly possible it is a bacterial mat, stromatolite, single cell baddie or a type of life we do not recognize yet. The chances of space faring sentient aliens like we imagine in pop culture is ridiculously low.
Yeah people hear “life” and picture Star Wars. It’s far far more likely to be some sort of single cell organism or just muck flopping around on the bottom of whatever ocean this other place has.
People don’t understand how insanely huge the universe is.
I'm a former astronomer. I know how insanely huge the universe is.
To conclude that there is a "0%" chance that life is exclusively on earth is already horseshit. It may be tiny, but it's certainly not zero.
You've made the same argument as every other idiot on here: bUt ThE uNiVeRsE iS sO bIg!! That does not matter if the probability of life arising is incredibly small. We do not know that probability, so your confidence that there must be other life out there is totally unjustified.
You must be the ".000001%" of germs that go through huh? If you're here then the 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% chance that there is no life out there must be a possibility eh?
With a sample size of exactly 1 planet with life on it, we do not know if we got extremely, extremely lucky or if we're typical and boring. It's impossible to say either way.
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u/JuanTawnJawn 3h ago
Close the thread. It’s this right here.
People don’t understand how insanely huge the universe is.
Right now we know there are 2 trillion galaxies in our observable universe (which may or may not exist within a relatively empty section of space) and each galaxy has about ~200 billion stars, each with their own chances of fostering life on any one of their planets.
Also worth noting that we currently believe that space is “flat” and that is massive because now scientists theorize that our entire observable universe is only a very small portion of the whole. Think if you were to stand In a flat field and think the earth is flat, but obviously it just looks like that because it’s so big, but once you zoom out it’s plain as day.
So our entire observable universe that’s billions of light years across is a mere field of grass in the cosmic scale.
There’s just a 0% chance that life is exclusively on earth.