Intelligent Life Elsewhere In Our Galaxy
As we all know there are tons of stars in our galaxy. As many more we can't see due to the dust regions that block visible light so that we can't see what is on the other side. Out of that vast number of stars and systems the uncountable numbers would seem to say intelligent life exists elsewhere too.
I think in all this that many don't realize just how rare our position is here. We are the only place we know that intelligent life exists. Think of all the things that had to be or happen for us to be here. Any of which if it didn't happen would mean we would not exist.
Fermi once put up the question of 'Where are they'? His meaning that if there was one star fairing race, it should by now have populated the galaxy and we should know of them. Yet to date we have no official recognition such is.
Half the stellar systems are binary, having at least two suns. These you can pretty much wipe out for having an intelligence. The weather environment of such a system brings in extremes in weather making life present a near impossibility as we know life to be. Then there are the stars that have no planets, so no life there.
It is unlikely that intelligence exists in the core center of our galaxy. One because most galaxies have a large black hole at the center as does ours and when it takes in matter it emits xrays strongly and that means sterilization. The other that stars are closer together in the center. One goes nova and it will wipe out anything close to it in stellar neighbors. That leaves the middle on out to the fringes for possible places life could exist.
By what we've seen of exoplanets, most of them have Jupiter sized planets near the star. This means that it pulls on the system to gather the left over masses of matter, such as asteroids and comets which will surely cross the orbits of other planets coming in. Picture Earth's early planet in the making with major bombardments of comets, which provided a dry earth with water. After that stage, the dinosaurs found out what that means. Life under those conditions is shakey at best. As with our system the Jovian planets need to be out in the outer reaches of the system to clean it up, without endangering a life bearing planet. From what we've seen so far, this is very rare as the place to be for a Jovian planet. Look at our moon to see why this is important. It has a record for all to see of being hit time and again by impact.
Our earth received a hit from an early protoplanet which hit in just the right way to produce a super moon but not in a way that shattered the planet apart. This moon has been responsible for the tides that are found on the earth and served as a giant stir stick to keep things mixed up and provide a way for minerals and materials to mix. Lack of that meant any life would have to go to the area where the mineral was, which always takes more energy. More energy needed means less chance of survival.
When our earth was formed, there was no oxygen. It was mainly hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Oxygen has been one of the powering elements to drive changes through corrosion as well as providing energy to our life forms. That took around a billion years to happen before vegetation could occur in the form of microscopic one celled bodies. It was those bodies that provided the oxygen to allow vegetation to grow when finally there was enough oxygen present. This is a rare thing, rather than a common one.
Our earth has large parts of radioactivity within the core. Enough to provide warmth to the planet. But radioactivity also drives mutations, giving that mix where survival of the fittest has a place to occur. Uncountable numbers of mutations have occurred in the last 4 billion years to produce what we know of as life. With out that radioactivity, none of what we now know of as life is possible.
Also we have a molten iron core at the center of the earth, without which, life would be shortly sterilized on this planet. The molten core along with the spin of the planet generate a magnetic field that keeps the sun's radiation from killing all life on the surface. It is the Van Allen belts that provide that protection and one of the reasons why the ISS is in so low of an orbit.
Then there is the location of the planet within the system. Outside the Goldilocks zone, water doesn't exist as a liquid. Our bodies are 98% water in liquid form. So life as we know it requires the planet's location to be where it is for the earth.
Our sun is fairly stable. It doesn't do a lot of flaring or pumping the system with strong radiation at high levels. This knocks out nearly all the other star categories with the exception of dwarf stars. The other thing about stars is that they have to have a long life for life to have the time to develop. Supermassive stars don't stay stable long enough.
There are a ton of other facts that make us unique and the total combination of all these factors make it less than likely of any other system actually developing life as we know it.
Topic: Intelligent Life Elsewhere In Our Galaxy (Read 3586 times)