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Is there anybody out there??

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So based on this story of the updated number of Earth-like planets in the milky way galaxies; there is 15 billion.  To put this in other terms; if an inch represented a planet like Earth; we could go around the earth at the equator 2.5 times.

If this isn’t eye-opening enough as to how unique our planet is..

Earth is located in just one of the over 10,000 visible galaxies; with conservative estimates suggesting that anywhere from 2 million to 300 million galaxies out there altogether; which means that there are anywhere from

15,000,000,000,000,000 to 45,000,000,000,000,000,000

What is so unique about humans?  Are we unique?

Well since we can’t go to each of these 15 billion planets in our galaxy that is Earth-like; actually we can’t even go to one of these with current technology; we can only look at ourselves, our planet’s history, and possibly look to Mars to possible reasons why we appear to be alone.

If we look at Earths billion year history; we have had a plethora of life.  From the dinosaurs, to the life of today; we can see things that have aided and hindered intelligent life.

Possible hindering agents:

  • Meteor impacts; The dinosaurs went extinct due to impacts and resulted in basically a “reset button” being pushed on most life.
  • Diseases, famine, plagues; there’s a lot of bad out there even today.  When these events happen without advanced medicine to prevent or help; these can wipe out civilizations that might have one day been “intelligent”.  To put in another way, despite how smart Einstein was, if his great great great great great great great great great great … grandmother had caught malaria, all the knowledge in the ancient world wouldn’t have saved her and we might not have the theory of relativity today.
  • Self-destruction:  it is possible that that what aided in our advancement could also be what ends up destroying ourselves.  With adaptation and evolution in all life, it is possible that the majority (not all) are more interested in their own preservation and benefit, than the benefit of mankind.  For all the evidence of global warming; there is pushback on almost all fronts to keep doing the same thing to the planet, rather than make life any less comfortable.  The fact that we are still debating global warming in the face of all evidence in my opinion highlights how we still aren’t looking at the big picture, but a more self-centered one.  There are still genes floating around in all our civilizations that produce people hell bent on the destruction of humanity and life.  People shooting up schools, countries trying to get nuclear weapons, etc.
  • Stars dying off
  • Planet running out of natural resources before they can optimize solar energy.

Aiding agents

  • Life seems to happen spontaneously if the right circumstances are out there (water, carbon based planet, right distance from their start)
  • Life can survive in very extreme conditions (life has been found in below freezing temperatures, temperatures near boiling, low oxygen areas, areas underwater so deep that virtually no sunlight reaches).
  • The number of species that have existed on Earth alone could fill multiple books.

So what gives?  Why when we look out at the night sky, with the most powerful telescope in the world (Hubble); why don’t we see or hear anything?

That is the million dollar question..

To give my opinion on things; here are the possibilities as I see it:

  • Life may be common, but intelligent life is extremely more difficult.  The fact that out of all the history of the world, and all the species that have existed, humans are the only species that have left the boundaries of Earth, and it took billions of years of evolution to do it.  Its possible that humanity dodges some bullets that could have kept us from remaining like nomads.  Unless we are able to travel back in time, we might never know what were the defining moments that separated us from the pack of species on our planet.
  • The distance: when we look out at the stars and galaxies, we are looking millions of years into the past in some cases, due to the distance and the speed of light; maybe we are the first to make our presence known?
  • Maybe we are late to the game?  Maybe there are species so advanced that we are “protected” in a sense, where we prevented from seeing or contacting others planets with life, as a way that we continue to strive in our technologies and sciences.  There’s so many stories of UFOs being seen here, but there is still no actual proof of them; which could show that they are already here.
  • Maybe we don’t make it; maybe there’s an almost unavoidable downfall to intelligent life where as we strive to advance technology, there will be those that would like to use powerful technologies to destroy mankind.  Humanity still has those nuts in the world after years of natural selection that are bent on destroying the earth.  To give an example; it may take thousands of years for humans to gain the knowledge to harness the power of the atom; yet if one person gets his hands on a nuclear weapon, he could destroy a whole city.
  • Maybe our technology isn’t advanced enough to see the signals out there in our view of the night sky.  Maybe when we see these stars, with planets circling them; maybe there is “signs” in the light we see that we haven’t noticed or don’t have the intelligence to notice at this time.  Maybe the typical space noise we hear has more to it than just static; maybe it is just the hum we hear of thousands of noises bouncing around in space.  Maybe there’s more to what we are seeing than we thing.
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