Aliens Aren't Real

Answer 1

-In 2008, we are still unable to rule out whether there is (or ever was) life on Mars, which is our nearest planetary neighbour: in fact it's looking more likely. If there was a single cell organism living on Mars, you could say that's an alien.

But as for intelligent life, there are really only two things we need to establish, in order to make a good guess:

- Is life unique to earth?

- Is a solar system of planets unique to our sun?

If the answer to both of those questions turns out to be 'no', then with a practically infinite number of stars in the universe, it seems unlikely that the conditions for life in some of those solar systems will not have developed into intelligent life.

The interesting thing about finding past or present life on Mars - no matter how small - is that it would prove beyond doubt that life is not unique to earth.

Planets around distant stars are a bit difficult to spot, but recently astronomers are finding planets at the rate of about one a week. A few weeks ago, as you may have heard on the news, a potentially rocky (earth-like planet) has been spotted, although so close to a sun that it would be a pretty nasty dwelling place.

The only remaining problem is meeting the aliens. After the sun, our nearest star is proxima centauri, 4 light years away. If we accept that aliens will not be able to travel as fast as the speed of light, that reduces the likelihood of us ever meeting any. That seems unlikely, although perhaps not impossible.

But then again, it all depends what you call aliens. If you're happy to accept microscopic life as aliens, there's quite a good possiblity that they're not only real, but that you've already met some of them, or of their ancestors. Or that we are descended from them. [[User:Tsuchan|Tsuchan]] 17:31, 7 Mar 2009 (UTC)