Why is the Universe so big, but so small in terms of places to support life?
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answers:
jehen say: We don't know that life is rare. It would seem so since we don't know of life on any other world. But we haven't yet ruled out life on other planets and moons in our own solar system, let alone the billions of star systems in billions of galaxies. One of the things that new information keeps revealing is how typical we are. The more we know about other star systems the less unusual ours appears to be. But we don't yet know enough details about those other systems to discern if ours is an outlier and rare or run-of-the-mill and common. From the scant details we can compare run-of-the-mill is winning. This suggests that life could be common. Even if it is, there is nothing to suggest that the inevitable end game of life is human-like sentience with language, creativity and technology. And even if that is common our own faculties suggest that AI may inevitably supersede natural organic intelligence and render it moot. All that is to say that the window of time and distance that two independently emerging technological societies emerge near enough to one another in distance and time to every encounter one another may be astonishingly small - even if such societies are common in the universe.
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elj2017c say: Some astronomers estimate that there are 100 billion galaxies in the universe and that each galaxy may contain as many as 100 billion stars! Some stars are many times the size of our sun. The galaxies are not just haphazardly thrown together but are set out in an organized and orderly manner.
The earth is a wonder among all the heavenly bodies in the universe. It is, in fact, unique. The earth provides just the right environment to accommodate living things comfortably, like a magnificent and well-provisioned house. It is a vast storehouse that has all of life’s necessities—food, air, water, and light—and much more. Only earth was created to sustain life.
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Chris Ancor say: It is not. It is absolutely stacked with life.
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John say: We shall never know how much life there is and where it resides. Personally, I take the rather logical course that if it exists here on Earth, it cannot be rare. Earth is not extraordinary in any way. And of course this means the concept of life, not necessarily sentient life.
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Atheist Dude say: We don't know for certain no under life can't or does not exist.
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CarolOklaNola say: Hyperinflation during the Planck epoch right after the Big Bang is why the Universe is so big. We honestly do not know if life is rare or not. Mars may gave had life 4 different times. Mars is pretty big. Mars may still have life underground Life does NOT require free oxygen. Tube worms thrive just fine on Earth in very acidic water.
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quantumclaustrophobe say: Well, truly - we don't have any idea how prevalent life is 'out there'.... we only know of one, single planet with life - and, it's ours...
Life could be teeming out there, everywhere - or, Earth might be the only game in town... we simply don't know yet.
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NONAME say: We dont even know if that is true. IF all "life" needs oxygen or if only we do?
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Acetek say: there are an estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the universe with an average of 400 billion stars each. that is a lot of stars and planets out there. Life is going to be everywhere. the universe is thick with it. just because our little star only has one planet with known life on it does not mean that it is not everywhere. we just have not found it yet
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sojsail say: Lots of things need to go right in order to support life. The Universe has many stars, but only some few of them have a planet with suitable conditions.
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