[Vaskez]

I also think that there could be smart life out there somewhere - a lot of work has been done on this though, and the odds are not good. For life anything like life on earth to exist, you need a planet with a similar size and climate to Earth. If a planet is too small it cannot generate a big enough gravitational field and may itself be pulled into its star. If it's too big it will attract all sorts of space debris, asteroids etc. which will probably kill any life on impact.

You also need a similar solar system to ours over all. We would be long dead or never would have evolved if Jupiter wasn't in our solar system - it attracts most large asteroids which are destroyed against it - without it, something would have hit Earth by now.

You also need a similar size and age star. I have read about this and they have only discovered one or 2 planets many many lightyears away that are even remotely deemed suitable for life.

And before you go on about how other life would have different requirements to living than us - the universe wherever you are is still made up of the same elements with the same chemical and physical properties so things still operate under the same basic rules and can't be that different.

The bottom line is that while there are many many stars out there, solar systems exactly suited to life are very rare and it is actually feasible that we are alone, although I do believe that there could be smart life out there.

[ 01-12-2004, 09:01 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]