Ghostlike dusty galaxy reappears in James Webb Space Telescope image
nanowerk.com
nanowerk.com
If I had a dollar for every astronomical object that turned out to be more common than expected in my life time, I'd be rich!
Exoplanets, brown dwarves, rogue planets, fast radio bursts, super-earth exoplanets, neutron stars, hot jupiters, binary star systems, ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, globular clusters in other galaxies, circumbinary exoplanets, intermediate-mass black holes, ringed exoplanets, pulsars, useful gravitational lenses, magnetars, white dwarves with planetary remnants, ultra-compact dwarf galaxies, quasars with outflows, blue stragglers... I could go on and on.
It's been a delight to watch, especially with the torrent of discoveries enabled by JWST. Maybe the astrophysicists will even be able to get our timeline back on track after the LHC screwed everything up.
I think life is the most common thing in the universe. We just don't have the tools yet. In fact we wouldn't be able to detect life on earth itself if we were on another planet.
You never know. Maybe it's antihydrogen.
Until we have sufficient evidence we don’t know how common life is in the universe. It doesn’t take much for one of the exponents of the Drake equation to veer towards zero so closely that all the vast distances, multitude of galaxies, stars, and planets make no difference to our chances of not being alone in the universe. We won’t know until we have a body of evidence with which we can perform statistical analysis and N=1 isn’t enough. Unless you’re in possession of non-public data on the matter then your assertion is merely a kind of faith.
Life is incredibly common because nothing about us is special in the universe.
Out of 6-8 billion years, 3 billion years was spent in single-cell form of life. We are extremely lucky.
We can calculate how many stars are formed after a supernova event, how many Earth-size planets in the habitable zone are survived after collision of two objects of comparable size, how many of them survived with ocean and large moon, to make large tidal waves (I suspect that first cells were formed as greasy puddles, then partially dried out, which created a membrane), then how many of them were far enough from a supernova or not erased by it own star in 4 billion years at least.
I suspect, that final number will be much less that 200 sextillion, because, to avoid a supernova, a star must be formed in a less dense region.
Space is hostile to most Earth-style life... but so are hot springs, undersea vents, and mile-deep mines, all of which we've unexpectedly found life in. Tardigrades can survive a complete vacuum and temperatures from -450 to 300 Fahrenheit, plus significant radiation.
Slow-growing life hopping around in the Oort clouds and taking million-year interstellar hibernations on rogue planets might be common, who knows?
> in the habitable zone
Same mistake here. We define "habitable zone" very, very narrowly based on our own circumstances; it's potentially a massive misnomer.
Precisely the point, no one knows yet as far as is publicly known. Anyone who purports to know ought to front up with the evidence or admit they don’t know.
That would mean that it would most likely only happen once in the observable universe, and the next instance may be many universe distances away. That would make us alone, even if we assume that the universe is infinite.
Fortunately, not like religion, we may one day have a definitive answer on the matter of life in the Universe, but today there's just not enough data to affirm anything.
Life observably exists
The life we know of began as soon as conditions could possibly have enabled it. This suggests that “the formula” for life may not be accidental or coincidental, but inevitable under earth like conditions.
Intelligence is not a necessary product of evolution. Large rigid bodies may not be a common pathway. If I was going to wager, I’d bet most life on other planets is microbial.
it's a parameter-pluggable model. ISTM it's science, just needs params. I think you're dissing stuff because you say so.
Looking at your comments, you seem to like saying provocative things. Whatever.
Just imagine the technological progress made by space faring creatures in the 30 years since! Well. Not much in our case...
* Single-star system (not that common)
* Away from galactic radiation in the center of the Milky Way
* A stable, elliptical system without chaos or collisions
* Optimal distance from the Sun
* Optimal amount of water
* Optimal size
* Oxygen
* Iron core to protect against radiation
* The Moon, right size, right distance, to keep the spin stable
* Gas giants absorbing a lot of dangerous projectiles before they get here
Take out any one of these, and we are probably toast.
Or take #2 - most of our galaxy is a radiation oven. This is probably true for many others, making the Universe predominantly hostile to life right off the bat.
And, sure, life could mean something else, and different permutation of these or completely different variables might create life, but as far as we know - the Earth is a very, very unique place.
We can see it in our own system, with "close but no cigar" Mars.
To fix the timeline, we just need to build a bigger accelerator.
Sincerely,
Your friends at Fermilab^WGoogle
"Dust" is a bit of a catch-all term but it's usually silicon- and carbon-based molecules.
https://www.astronomy.com/science/ask-astro-the-universe-is-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_early_univer...