re: What if we found alien life?

This is incorrect. There are thousands of planets that fall into the Goldilocks zone (just right) for sustaining life. It is literally almost impossible that there is not life out there in the universe. It is too vast.

quote:

---

This is incorrect. There are thousands of planets that fall into the Goldilocks zone (just right) for sustaining life. It is literally almost impossible that there is not life out there in the universe. It is too vast.

---

You are right. However, I must point out being in the “Goldilocks Zone” is but one of many factors needed for a planet to sustain life. There are a myriad of other variables that must be precisely right for there to be life.

quote:

---

It depends on what they look like. I highly doubt that there is a chance of life out there considering all of the factors that Earth has to be in just to sustain life between the ice caps.

---

You really think that in all the vast universe out there, it’s not likely that somewhere, a planet like ours exists?

I’d say it’s far more probable than not.

quote:

---

Everyone assumes that life must be the same as the life on earth. We don't know that that is true. And even if it is, the sheer mind-boogling immensity of the universe and the numbers of stars and planets out there makes it a near mathematical impossibility that life hasn't risen elsewhere.

---

I’m not saying life must be the same as it is here, just that there are other factors beside being the right distance from its sun playing into whether or not life can exist.

For example, scientists believe without a gas giant like Jupiter in the same solar system to act as a shield of sorts, life would not be able to develop because asteroid strikes would be too common for life to gain a toehold. Also, without a suitable moon orbiting the planet to manage the tides in the ocean life would not develop. And speaking of the oceans, even with tides, unless the water contains the right variations of salinity and temperatures there would be no ocean currents. No ocean currents and there is no life. As for the variations in water temperatures, that requires season similar to what we have here on earth. To have season the planet must have both a tilt and an elliptical orbit around it’s star. Without these, no seasons and no life. Then there is the requirement of a molten iron core of the correct size and composition to create a magnetic field capable of shielding the planet from radiation from the planet’s sun. Without the molten iron core, radiation from the sun would sterilize the planet.

Like I said, being in the “Goldilocks Zone” is only one of many things that all have to come together precisely for life, any form of life, to develop. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m just saying a whole lot of things have to go exactly right for it to happen.

quote:

---

I get what you're saying, but my point was that, for all we know, there could be some kind of plasma-based life on the face of the sun. It would be nothing like life as we know it, but we don't know what is possible. Tides and asteroids wouldn't mean shite to it.

I'm not saying that is likely. I'm just saying we don't know. But, like I said, even life more like we know, almost certainly exists. The universe is just too vast for it not to.

---

Of course there are things we cannot know yet. But from what we do know, for life to exist in any form, the variables I listed above, plus many others I’m not thinking of at the moment, all to be met precisely for life to even start to develop.