When I think about what may be off in space it just boogles my mind. I mean how can we not knwo if there is more life or what exactly is there. It seems to me that in a place to vastly big, that we can barely wrap our heads around, I think that there must be more. Maybe earth is an island and there are planets out there that are hudge continents. It seems so closed minded to me to think we aqre alone. Another great thing about this topic is science can give you theries and so on, but can they really prove anything? \n\nSO what do you think is out there in the great beyond? God? Just us? forverer and ever never ending?? Or something the rest of us could never even dream up.
127324
Supposedly, we can only see just a small fraction of our universe.  With some many places, the odds are pretty good that there exists life somewhere else in the universe.\n\nHowever, with those odds, the chance of us finding them is almost zero.  Humans have existed for almost no time at all compared to the life of the universe, so the chance that another life form exists at this exact moment in time is very small.\n\nWith the large universe, somehow one of us would have to get interstellar travel.  But the chance of one of us randomly bumping into each other is very small because the universe is that large.\n\nAlso, who says other life forms want to expand to other places.  Maybe both of us will just be happy living on one planet and staying there until the life form goes extinct.\n\nThe only way we could prove any of these theories is to actually find other life, but given the above, the chance of that is almost zero.\n\nAll that said, I think there is/was life out there, but I don't think we'll ever find it.  Maybe they made it to Type I and self-destructed like we might. :)
325466
i think to belive that we (as humans) are the only thing out there is a very naive thing to think. with that said  any answer given to you will only be excepted if it falls into your belief system. so on one hand you have your unwavering faith(not meaning that in a disrespectful way) and on the other you have the overwhelming proof that something other then humans live in space. So if such poof is true then these other beings would also have to have a belief system about there creation. and being that there is only one "GOD" no matter what name "GOD" is given or how many different sides"GOD" has, then if the poof of these other beings proves true Then yes "GOD" must have put them there. and you and the other beings would both agree to this, even if using different names for"GOD".
341937
I agree with you. There has got to be other planets out there with life on them. And some with intelligent life. It is very self centered for humans to say Earth is the only planet in the whole universe to have life. And yes, for the religious people, God does not have to mention that there other planets with life for it to be true.
618971
You've awakened the starry-eyed dreamer in me at this late hour!  I should be sleeping, but can't resist your question.\n\nHow many other planets, do I think?  Actually my number is a lot higher than millions!  In fact, on this subject you get into numbers so large that most of us humans cannot relate them to anything in our experience.  So, sadly, I doubt we can appreciate the grandeur of the universe.  But let me try...\n\nOne fairly recent estimate says there are 70 sextillion *visible stars* in range of modern telescopes (70,000 million million million).\n\nTo help put that in perspective, I'll use a rather old but useful analogy.  Imagine scooping up a big handful of sand at the beach. Try counting the grains of sand.  You'll give up, most likely, in seconds, assuming you even bother to try.  Now look all around you on the beach, and think about *that* number.  Now think about all the grains of sand on *all the world's* beaches... and deserts.  Now multiply that total number by ten, and you get approximately the number above -- of stars in the *known* universe.  The stars not visible to us by even our most powerful telescopes may equal the visible figure -- or be multiples of it.  Mind-boggling, no?\n\nSo to your planet question:  One next has to wonder how many of those stars are actually a sun to one or more planets (hey, I just noticed that was your wording, too; I like it).  Does every star have at least one planet revolving about it?  \n\nWell let's just be very conservative and say that there are only 70 sextillion stars in the *entire* (not just known) universe.  Let's further say that only one tenth of those stars (7 sextillion) have a planet orbiting them.  If we assume merely one planet per sun, then there must be at least 7 sextillion planets in the universe.  Using our sand analogy, that's a planet per grain of sand on all the world's beaches and deserts!\n\nAnyone who believes that is a reasonable number must surely wonder, "How could there NOT be living beings somewhere other than the earth?"  \n\nOf course not all planets will have life on them.  Earth may be the only body in our solar system, for example, which does harbor life, though at least one of Jupiter's moons is also a tantalizing possibility.\n\nIf only one out of a *thousand* of those planets are earth-like -- in the sense that they are rocky, not gaseous, and contain liquid water -- there may be 7 quintillion earth-like planets in the universe.  That's 7,000 thousand trillion.  I've been very careful, but if my math or estimates are off by even a factor of a *billion* there could be 7,000 million earth-like planets in the universe, a figure I think is extremely low.\n\nThese figures seems to jibe fairly well with an estimate of the number of earth-like planets in our galaxy alone, found at space.com (the bottom link in my sources) -- 30 billion, from a 2002 article.\n\nMy personal belief, based on numbers such as this, and on the likelihood that any planet supporting life may contain (extremely conservatively!) a thousand species...  is that there are *billions* of intelligent species in the universe outside the earth.\n\nSince you were wise to point out that we reside in the Milky Way galaxy, which is only one of perhaps billions of galaxies, you might be fascinated by the Hubble photo in the references, below.  I liked it so much, myself, that I made it my new desktop wallpaper.\n\nFinally, on the specific subject of life, there is a well-known method of estimating the number of intelligent, communicating civilizations, called the Drake Equation.  In my references you can see how it works to condense all the possible stars down by multiple factors, leaving the fraction which we may be able to communicate with, or at least hear from!  \n\nHappy dreaming (for me, too), and I hope you are as inspired by all this as I am.   :-)
414182
Hmm, this one is interesting. I mean you could have left this one off with the science, but you added the philosophical point. But thats ok because it makes it so much more subjective. But, let's start with what science can prove, and move on from there. This should be interesting. Ok. Would the sun go supernova? No, because our nice little star is not massive enough, it needs A LOT more mass to go super nova. But what it will do is many years from now (hopefully) it will enter the Red Giant phase, where the Sun will expand outwards to about where Mars is. As it is doing that, yes it will burn concrete, it will flashboil the oceans, and turn our lush eden into a barren world shortly before being consumed by the sun. After that it will explode to create a planetary nebula and the suns inner core will remain and cool to a white dwarf. Now, the philosophical question. Mother nature would probably not step in because this is just another cycle, this happens to many other stars/ suns in our night sky. But, God probably would. In fact, he could come before our little star goes boom. Because remember that when he spoke to Noah, he said that he would destroy the world again, only with fire this time. So the sun destroying itself could have some part to play. But, he may not come till after it destroys itself. Now, that is if you believe the Bible. Im not sure what the Kuran or any other religious works have to say about their god or gods. Because remember, it took him from the big bang to about 35 A.D. to return, about 20 billion years. So, he may not come for another 20 billion years! Remember, his timescale is not like ours is. And thats the beauty of all this! He gave us a universe to explore, and a holy work commanding us to go forth unto the world and multiply! What better excuse to use for space exploration! I mean we have so much time that its almost insane. I feel that we have barely scratched the surface on our understanding of the universe, and that we should take steps to understand it.\n\n(Please note: Though I am a Christian, I respect other religions because last I looked, we lived in a country that allows freedom of religion, and actually, I would love to see some one from another religion answer this to see what they have to say about this)
616162
Personally I don't reject the idea, but I don't exactly embrace it, either.  \n\nLet me pose this to you:  If there are an infinite number of universes, and let's say, just for now, that there is a Divine Creator, did this ONE being create the infinite universes you describe?  Or are there in infinite number of this Creator?\n\nNext thought:  If, for every action/thought/possibility there is a separate universe, on how many of them would you actually exist?  On how many universes did life on Earth actually form (assuming evolution)?  \n\nLastly:  Take the statement that there are an infinite number of possibilities and that what we perceive from instant to instant is merely what we have CHOSEN to perceive at that instant, is there a separate universe created for each of those possibilities which are not perceived, or, because they aren't perceived (therefore not "real") do they fail to "launch" a separate universe?\n\nIf you haven't noticed, I find the ideas of possiblity incredibly fascinating. \n\nI hope I didn't make your brain explode!
517164
I love this kind of Q...we used to have healthy disscusions about this when I was at school....I agree totally that there has to be other 'beings' on other planets....I mean where did we come from? \n\nYes, God made man.....here's a question for you all....what's to say God hasn't made other humans or beings elsewhere in the Universe. The Universe is way to diverse and still being discovered with heaps of other solar systems that haven't even been found yet.\n\nSo, I'm for 'Beings' out there purely because there still is no proof that there aren't any.....oh, and by the way I don't stand in cornfields with aluminium on my head.
84367
Well, whether we're even considered intelligent or not would depend on who else is out there in the vast cosmos.  Scientists estimate that there are so many stars and so many planets, even if only one in a billion have life, then there are bound to be other planets with life more advanced then we are.  \n\nInterestingly, in the discussion about creation of the universe and the earth found in the biblical book of Genesis, there's not a word about Earth being the only inhabited world that God created.  \n\nSo yes, the possibility exists.
507298
Yea i Wonder, but as a man of science I have to consider evidence.\nThere is no evidence of ET life.
80010
Like they said in the movie Contact, I don't know, but if not that's an awful waste of space.\n\nYes, I believe that life exists in some form out there. I'm not sure if I believe they are "among us" but I do believe we have a lot of unanswered questions regarding UFOs. \n\nThe government hiding things from us? Awwww. You don't think they would really do that, do you? You'd be amazed at how much our government keeps from us. I worked in military intelligence at one time. There is something called "a need to know." And who do you think decides who needs to know?
598361
I think you have it backwards.  The macrocosm reflects (to a degree), the microcosm.\n\nAt present, no-one knows if there are other universes.  My suspicion (not belief, just suspicion) is that everything that is possible is in some sense actual.  My other suspicion is that nothing is actual at all, so there is nothing to prevent the existence of everything.  Yes, that's a contradiction, but we're allowed to contemplate them once we step outside the bounds of what is knowable.
107995
Statistically, it is very hard to believe that we (Earthliens) are along in the universe, there must be something else out there.\nAt the same time, the odds that life would develop independently on both Earth and Mars in the same solar system is pretty slim (unless life is actually not nearly as rare as we might think).\n\nThere is of course a chance that life may have developed on Mars in the past when the conditions were more suitable, but so far, we havent found anything.  Although there is the possibility, I am leaning towards no.\n\nBut think what that would mean if we discovered life outside of Earth (especially on Mars), it would be the most important discovery...ever.  If life can develop independently on two planets in the same solar system, either we are very lucky, or it the whole universe must be crawling with life (or you could throw the God factor in if you wish).
508780
There have to be some where, with such a large universe and completely undiscovered yet the probability is very very high of life somewhere else in the universe. It just diminishes when we think about intelligent life forms.
139193
I don't know about experiments and alien visits. But I know that I'd like to think that there is more out there some where. I don't even know if there is a chance that other intelegent life exists for not but I can't help but think that other planets in the universe have to be suitable for some form of life and continue to sustain something. We may never find it or know about it, especailly in this life time but there has to be more than just Earth.
647121
If there was just nothing, we would never know what could happen because we wouldnt exist.\nI believe there is more out there in the universe than what we know of.\nWether we discover these things or not is hard to ever say.
315981
Being an avid science fiction fan and part-time speculative thinker (or something), I would like to believe that there IS life out there.  The universe is so vast, surely the possibility exists.\n\nOnly don't you think we would have had some contact by now? Oh, yeah, maybe we have...nobody really believes that weather balloon story, do they?  Maybe that's the secret...
130702
how do you understand anything?  We can't understand everything there are things beyond our comprehension.  Try to think about this, does space end?  Is it infinte?  what is infinite?  You kno?