Originally Posted by bud luv
Please allow me to explain to everyone why Humans will never have contact with intelligent life from outer space. At least no sooner than 1 million years from now. I will start with a primer on the size of the universe.
-1 light year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum (space is a vacuum) in a year. 1 light year is 5,878,625,373,183.61 miles.
-The center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 26,000 light years away. The Galaxy is about 100,000 light years across. Thus, any images we observe with telescopes of the center of our Galaxy are images that are 26,000 years old.
-It takes approximately 8.31 minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth (a distance of 1.58 Ã? 10−5 light-years).
-One megalight-year, abbreviated "Mly", is one million light-years, or the distance light travels in one million years. Megalight-years are typically used to measure distances between neighboring galaxies and galaxy clusters.
-The Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 2.5 megalight-years away.
The Triangulum Galaxy (M33), at 3.14 megalight-years away, is the most distant object visible to the naked eye.
The nearest large galaxy cluster, the Virgo Cluster, is about 59 megalight-years away. So any images we see of the Andromeda Galaxy are 2.5 million years old.
-The distance from the Earth to the edge of the visible universe is about 46.5 gigalight-years in any direction; this is the radius of the Observable universe. 1 gigalight year = The distance light travels in 1 billion years.
:rasta: :rasta: :rasta: :rasta: :rasta:
Now that you all know how big the universe is, time for a smoke break for me.
:rasta: :rasta: :rasta: :rasta: :rasta:
-The speed at which mass travels cannot exceed the speed of light, due to matter breaking down. At such velocities dispersed particles in the rarefied interstellar medium would turn into a stream of high-energy cosmic rays that would destroy the ship unless extraordinary radiation protection measures were taken. This undesired effect could only possibly result if a method of propulsion could be devised to move the spacecraft at this super optic speed. It is inconceivable that this technological barrier could be crossed.
-So when we see an image of a point in space, it is impossible for any type of mass to "pass" that light image before it gets to our telescopes. When our big telescopes take a picture of the Andromeda Galaxy, for example, we see an image that is 2.5 million years old, and it is not possible for mass to get to us quicker than the picture (picture = light).
-We have pictures of the edge of the observable universe that took 46.5 billion years to get here (earth).
Ok, let's recap: We know the size of the universe, the distance that it would take to cross it, and that nothing in our index of space photos shows life.
-Taking the route of caution, let's assume that there is intelligent, advanced life in the Andromeda Galaxy. Let's assume that this species of life is capable of traveling at half the speed of light (impossible). If that species of Alien left today, It would get here in 1.25 million years.
-The future of the planet is closely tied to that of the Sun. The luminosity of the Sun will continue to steadily increase, growing from the current luminosity by 10% in 1.1 billion years and up to 40% in 3.5 billion years Climate models indicate that the increase in radiation reaching the Earth is likely to have dire consequences, including possible loss of the oceans
-The increased heat will accelerate the inorganic CO2 cycle, reducing its concentration to the lethal dose for plants (10 ppm for C4 photosynthesis) in 900 million years. But even if the Sun was eternal and stable, the continued internal cooling of the Earth would have resulted in a loss of much of its atmosphere and oceans (due to lower volcanism). More specifically, for Earth's oceans, the lower temperatures in the crust will permit their water to leak more deeply than today (at certain depth the water is evaporating) resulting in their total disappearance in 1 billion years. Earth would be uninhabitable by humans far sooner than all this, though.
-The fact that the earth will only exist for a certain amount of time limits the distance from which any UFO could travel and actually find our planet. Anything further than 1 gigalight-year would arrive too late, thus making our contact with 99.9999% of the universe (or something along those lines) impossible.
-Many estimates that take into account the elements of pollution and disease measure the human race's expiration date in a scale far smaller than millions of years. That our species could last another 1.25 million years (minimum amount of time for aliens from Andromeda to get here) on planet Earth would be improbable
To wrap it all up: With our limited time frame of existence coupled with the vast expanses of space between us and the nearest galaxies, it will be next to impossible for us to ever contact Alien life. Sorry, no smoking a fattie with ET or Chewbacca. ;)