Thursday, March 24, 2022

Alien Life?

 Think about alien life, assuming it exists.  The universe is vast and the planets in our solar system would not support advanced life and probably no life at all.

Once you get out of our solar system, the nearest star is about 4.5 light years away.  While that might sound close, most of us would have trouble really envisioning that distance.  A light year is the distance light can travel in a year.  I suppose a planet could exist in that solar system that supports life but if it does we haven't been able to detect it.  We think there is an earth like planer in that solar system based on measurements but we cant go there and verify it.

The point to be made is that space is so vast that even if life advanced enough to be exploring space exists, it is not going to stumble across us, even if it is trying to detect other life.  We think that we are worth looking only because we still, collectively think we are the center of things.

In science fiction, emphasize the fiction they create various mechanisms to account for this like suspended animation, worm holes or other concepts.  These don't exist and without them we are not visiting other solar systems.  Could they exist?  Well who knows but the ideas are creative but not likely.

What is pretty certain is that we haven't had any visitors just dropping by undetected to examine us.  



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