re: What would like to see / know about in our solar system during your lifetime?

Not our solar system, but it’d be pretty cool if Betelgeuse went super nova in my lifetime. Of course, that would mean that it already has gone super nova

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The one to Enceladus is particularly exiting as it would make several transits through the venting plumes of water than land at the South Pole where all the action is.

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The problem I have with Enceladus is its size. It’s smaller than Texas. I think it’s possible that it doesn’t have all the prerequisites for life to have evolved there.

Furthermore, the water that is pluming from the moon is crystal clear, further indicating the lack of chemical evolution.

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it is unlikely we will discover complex life forms on a habitable earth like planet, without much faster spacecraft. The distances are too large.

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We already have the ability to discover other civilizations. With the launch of the Webb space telescope, we can determine the makeup of a lot of exoplanets’ atmospheres.

That’s what caused the sensation about exoplanet K2-18b. Dimethyl sulfide, DMS, was discovered in its atmosphere. This is an indication of the possibility of life on the planet. There are other processes, however, that can produce DMS. A search for the related compound dimethyl disulfide, DMDS, was made but was futile. No DMDS was found. It would have been conclusive evidence for life.

So, we can look for the signatures of life in the gases of exoplanets’ atmospheres. We can also look for the signs of a technological civilization, probably in the form of atmospheric pollutants such as those in our own sky.

Can't even defend your own opinions. Carry on, moron.

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Can't even defend your own opinions. Carry on, moron.

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So you saying we can't use Earth as an example of life existing in the universe? Yeah you is be stupid.

So you're saying you don't understand what elsewhere means? Talk about stupid

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So you're saying you don't understand what elsewhere means? Talk about stupid

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So you saying that one can't use evidence to show life exists?

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no we don’t. We only have the ability to detect chemical signatures as you noted in your post. That’s not the same as observing and collecting actual microbial life. We can only do that within our own solar system, and Europa and Enceladus are our best chances to do that. If we were to visit those moons, and collect definitive proof of life, then and only then could we be sure in our assumptions of what that means when we see signatures of life on distant planets or moons. We must have the proof

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Though our data set for studying life in the universe is only 1, it still tells us a lot about the possibilities elsewhere:

1. Life is possible;

2. Intelligent life is possible;

3. Life can arise very quickly on a new planet;

4. The evolution from single-cell organisms to multicellular beings may take an extremely long time, 3 billion years in earth’s case;

5. A settled and stable solar system is probably required based on the length of time it took for complex life to evolve on earth;

6. A thick atmosphere with the gases necessary to maintain life is a prerequisite.

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That’s not the same as observing and collecting actual microbial life.

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Of course it isn’t but your view is extremely limiting. There is no way that we will be able to travel to a distant exoplanet and sample its environment in a search for life; but to say that we must find microbial life, at least, on other bodies in the solar system so that we can actually examine it before being able to say that life exists on exoplanets doesn’t recognize our capabilities to do just that.

We have a data set, earth, with which to compare any discoveries on exoplanets. For example, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have been pumping manufacturing pollutants into our atmosphere. If we were to observe these same pollutants in the atmosphere of an exoplanet that had all the other prerequisites for life, we could conclude that a civilization had begun there and was well into the technological stage of evolution.

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With the launch of the Webb space telescope, we can determine the makeup of a lot of exoplanets’ atmospheres.

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Millions of years in the past.

We have no idea what they would be like now, just like we have no way of knowing what our own planet will be like millions of years from now.

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Millions of years in the past.

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Certainly not all of them. For example, there are about 10,000 stars within just 100 light years of us and 512 of them are sun-like.