Black Raven Dragoons

[Zancarius]

http://spacefellowship.com/2009/09/16/s ... cky-world/

Very fascinating stuff. This one is particularly interesting, because they confirmed its existence independently using its transition across the face of its parent star.

But don't get too excited. The planet is close enough to its parent star to roast and orbits once every 20.4 hours.

[Snobal]

That's pretty ballin'.

Life exists outside of earth, I swearz it!

[Zancarius]

LOL

My take?

There is no intelligent life in our galaxy. Look at Earth for example.

Hah hah. I know. I jest.

Truthfully, I don't think there is. Since most people I share this debate with say "OMG BUT THE GALAXY IS SOOOOO HUGE, YOU'RE IGNORANT IF YOU BELIEVE THAT!"

No, I'm not. There are a lot of reasons why--certainly more than I can enumerate here--but it sums up to: 1) there hasn't been enough time for life to form besides us (obviously), 2) you can only go back so far; too early and some of the heavier elements don't even exist (we're all star stuff), 3) if there is intelligent life, they likely haven't reached the point we have. Or maybe they have and they're on the other side of the galaxy.

There is some hope, however, and it ironically lies in the fact that the SETI project is completely worthless. Due to attenuation, interstellar gas and dust, and the relatively poor power output of radio transmissions, even if there is intelligent life out there, we won't hear them with our current technology. This is also why SETI has been putting together a massive array of radio telescopes, because they know that the parent stars drown any hope of lesser-powered devices from being heard. So far, they've not detected anything that hasn't been attributed to natural causes. Although, the science SETI has been doing as of late has found some WEIRD things. (We're talking about stuff on the magnitude of stars, so outlandish sci-fi aside, don't get your hopes up.)

Then there's the drake equation. You can look it up on Wikipedia. If you do, ask yourself how in the heck that stupid equation can really "prove" anything. Hint: It can't. There are too many variables. It's like being given an algebra problem with the letters A-Z and being asked to solve for each.

That said, I do think that the likelihood of simple multicellular organisms is pretty high.

[Snobal]

Intelligent life within our galaxy, maybe... But intelligent life in the universe, certainly.

The Drake Equation is complete crap. Its really a waste of thought. A thought I unfortunately was forced to write a paper on some years back.

Concerning microbial life within our galaxy, certainly.

An astound astrophysicist put it very well once: For every spec of sand on the longest beach on Earth, there is a galaxy, and within that galaxy trillions of stars.
Its not a matter of what small percent chance is there that life exists, its a small percent chance that life doesn't exist. There are just too many opportunities for life to take hold, it cannot possibly deny them all.

[Zancarius]

Life in general? I agree. Intelligent life in particular? We may never know.

I guess I don't ascribe to the Star Trek notion of the universe.

[Zancarius]

Ironic as it might be, it looks like XKCD has dealt recently with this exact topic:

http://xkcd.com/638/