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[Sean Mirrsen]

Neither bushmen or tribesmen hunt tigers bare-handed though. We've invented substitutes for tough skin and claws, but all that means is that it's easy to contain unarmed humans. We're almost nothing without tools.

[DJ]

Yeah, but we can make tools out of anything. A simple branch can turn into a deadly weapon in an instant. And if you're going to use an arena where nothing that can be used to hit things is available, you might as well go the whole nine yards and put the humans in vacuum.

[PTTG??]

Yes, tool using is the major advantage of intelligence. My point was that it is plausible that this advantage is not necessarily worth the cost in terms of brain development; for one thing, only one species on planet earth, out of millions, has developed it.

Perhaps of the 1/1000000 planets with life, there are only 1/1000000 with complex life rather than bacteria-like replicators, only 1/1000000 of these has intelligent life (similar statistics to the percentage of intelligence as species on earth), and perhaps all but 1/1000000 of these intelligences are rather static, living just fine without leaving hunter\gatherer state. (much like many human cultures before western missionaries invaded.) That would go a long way to explaining our quiet sky.

[Yanlin]

Yes, tool using is the major advantage of intelligence. My point was that it is plausible that this advantage is not necessarily worth the cost in terms of brain development; for one thing, only one species on planet earth, out of millions, has developed it.

Perhaps of the 1/1000000 planets with life, there are only 1/1000000 with complex life rather than bacteria-like replicators, only 1/1000000 of these has intelligent life (similar statistics to the percentage of intelligence as species on earth), and perhaps all but 1/1000000 of these intelligences are rather static, living just fine without leaving hunter\gatherer state. (much like many human cultures before western missionaries invaded.) That would go a long way to explaining our quiet sky.

That still leaves a few hundred thousand (Math needed) or more intelligent aliens out there.

[DJ]

There may be nobody out there or there may be millions of advanced civilizations. Fact is, we have far too little data for any statistical analysis.

[Tormy]

There may be nobody out there or there may be millions of advanced civilizations. Fact is, we have far too little data for any statistical analysis.

There is, that is for sure...even if don't know anything about them. The question is: How come that no aliens have visited our planet? [Don't start to talk about UFOs, because the UFOs & UFO stories are not real.. ]
I think the only logical answer is this:
1. Number of stars in the visible universe = 30 billion trillion  (3x10²²)
2. Huge distances between the star systems and/or galaxies.
3. Probably there is no way to travel faster than lightspeed.

So what if there is an advanced alien civilization living on a planet, which is like 15.000 lightyears away from Earth? That is a very short distance [Example - let's take a look at the size of our own galaxy: The disk of the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light years in diameter (one light year is about 9.5 x 10^15 meters), but only about 1000 light years thick.] , but it would take 15.000 years to reach that planet, if you travel @ lightspeed.

[Yanlin]

Number 1 is the most likely. It is EXTREMELY LIKELY that NONE of them even SAW earth. Perhaps they are too busy amongst themselves.

Any civilization with enough resources to go around checking planets for life has got to be in some state of inner rebellion. This consumes all their time and leaves little possibility to explore space.

[JoshuaFH]

I don't understand your logic, in assuming that an alien civilization my be in rebellion.

[Nilocy]

I wouldn't say in a state of rebellion. I mean, a civilisation who has enough resources to hunt for planets must have devoted A LOT of resources to a civilisation that is stable. You can't go out into space on a rickety platform.

[Yanlin]

Well from what we know of humans, USA is a prime example. Even within its own borders there are terrorists that wish to bring it down. They can't just throw money at it.

Not this isn't exponential, but it is an inseparable part of civilization. Aliens with the resources to explore space are probably too hard pressed actually staying a civilization!

[JoshuaFH]

I'm just saying that's a pretty harsh call to make on a hypothetical intergalactic alien civilization that we know nothing about.

It may just be my sleep-deprived mind speaking, but that seems like a case of correlation does not imply causation. Terrorists don't hate America because it has a lot of resources, there's a lot of factors involved, and the bonds a hypothetical alien government has with it's citizens, and the hypothetical possible super-government it might have would allow for such costly endeavors or even be ideal for allowing a space exploring civilization to exist.

For all we know, a possible alien race has already used up all the natural resources on it's home planet, and is now living completely in space, leeching resources off of dust clouds and water planets and such.

[Tormy]

For all we know, a possible alien race has already used up all the natural resources on it's home planet, and is now living completely in space, leeching resources off of dust clouds and water planets and such.

Yeah that should be true about the very advanced alien civilizations.

[Tormy]

Hubble celebrates 19th anniversary with fountain of youth
http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0906.html


To commemorate the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's 19 years of success, the orbiting telescope has photographed a peculiar system of galaxies known as Arp 194. This interacting group contains several galaxies along with a "cosmic fountain" of stars, gas and dust that stretches over 100 000 light years.



1280x1534 image:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Over the past 19 years Hubble has taken dozens of exotic pictures of galaxies going "bump in the night" as they collide with each other and have a variety of close encounters of the galactic kind. Just when you thought these interactions couldn’t look any stranger, this image of a trio of galaxies, called Arp 194, looks as if of the galaxies has sprung a leak. The bright blue streamer is really a stretched spiral arm full of newborn blue stars. This typically happens when two galaxies interact and gravitationally tug at each other gravitationally.

Resembling a pair of owl's eyes, the two nuclei of the colliding galaxies can be seen in the process of merging at the upper left. The bizarre blue bridge of material extending out from the northern component looks as if it connects to a third galaxy but in reality this galaxy is in the background and not connected at all. Hubble's sharp view allows astronomers to try and sort out visually which are the foreground and background objects when galaxies, superficially, appear to overlap.

The blue "fountain" is the most striking feature of this galaxy troupe and it contains complexes of super star clusters that may have as many as dozens of individual young star clusters in them. It formed as a result of the interactions among the galaxies in the northern component of Arp 194. The gravitational forces involved in a galaxy interaction can enhance the star formation rate and give rise to brilliant bursts of star formation in merging systems.

Hubble's resolution shows clearly that the stream of material lies in front of the southern component of Arp 194, as shown by the dust that is silhouetted around the star cluster complexes.

The details of the interactions among the multiple galaxies that make up Arp 194 are complex. The system was most likely disrupted by a previous collision or close encounter. The shapes of all the galaxies involved have been distorted by their gravitational interactions with one another.

Arp 194, located in the constellation of Cepheus, resides approximately 600 million light-years away from Earth. Arp 194 is one of thousands of interacting and merging galaxies known in our nearby Universe. These observations were taken in January 2009 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Blue, green and red filters were composited together to form this rather picturesque image of a galaxy interaction.

This picture was issued to celebrate the 19th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1990. Hubble has made more than 880 000 observations and snapped over 570 000 images of 29 000 celestial objects over the past 19 years.

[jaked122]

E.T. phone mountainhome.

sig material

[Yanlin]

Yes. Another win for the legendary comedian!