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Are there aliens? If so, what will they look like? Will they be carbon-based? Will they be like us? Will they be peaceful? Will they be advanced or just bacteria?

1. I think so
2. no idea
3.some
4. in somne ways.
5. most likely if we are nice and what not.
6.both

all of the above?

More discussion!

Will we discover aliens in our life time?

Probably not. as we are not at the right enough stage to find adeteuenly any life sources.

From what I've read on the subject, it is generally agreed by scientists that we will encounter aliens within the next 50 years at most.

POMC S117 wrote:Will they be carbon-based?

I think we should get some silicon-based lifeforms up in this universe. Not only is it possible, but organosilicon organisms would thrive in atmospheres rich in sulfuric acid. The only problem is that they would choke and freeze to death on our planet and possibly also break apart at the molecular level. Which could be cool to watch.

Arch-Mage Matt wrote:From what I've read on the subject, it is generally agreed by scientists that we will encounter aliens within the next 50 years at most.

Who says that aliens out there are more advanced than us? I'm of the opinion that life on other planets is bipedal and boring, just like us.

I think we can easily, we may not contacdt them but find proof can be seeing things on distant planets, or even a space rock.

that being siad we will most likely be old, then again tommorw they could show up.

I didn't mean it as aliens will visit us or anything. I meant we'll just discover evidence of life elsewhere in the next 50 years.

Maybe. But if the life out there is on a par technologically with us, I doubt we'll be receiving any radio signals from them within the next 50 years. Think how many light years they would be from us. Even if they invented radio 100 years ago and sent out a signal it might take thousands of years to reach us.

If they're more advanced than us then I expect a visitation tomorrow, because I can't be bothered to wait for them to find us.

The only one I can actually answer is the first one with a resounding YES. Past that I have absolutely no idea. Pretty much all of those other questions would have to be based on an earthbound human perspective, which a non-earthbound non-human would not have. We mostly base fictional aliens off something that has developed on our planet as we have no other perception and have only developed one more credible theory for supporting life (nitrogen and phosphorus-base are like science's swiss cheese so they don't count). 'Be like us' is such an ambiguous term that I won't even go there. Again, we have no way of knowing just how warlike we are in the scope of the entire galaxy and what other races are like is difficult to know, although I imagine that if anything like our biological system exists on another planet (and in all likelihood it will) then I imagine they will display some aggressive tendencies just like us. As for the final one, well, we're not sure just how evolved we truly are in the grand scale of things. With the way a star system can form it would theoretically be possible that a form of life first appeared long, long before Earth's first cenancestor developed, and it's more than possible that foreign life is beginning right at this moment, so our first contact may just as easily be with a race that's miles ahead of us in evolutionary terms or single-celled. Also we may bump into a race that's developed what we would class as sentience but which lacks any kind of ambition, creativity etc. to advance itself in the terms that we would class the word by.

Are non-carbon and non-silicon based lifeforms possible? Arsenic-based?

@Tom: What if we don't find life through communication, but through searching on Mars (PROTHEANS) or through the Hubble telescope or something similar?

POMC S117 wrote:Are non-carbon and non-silicon based lifeforms possible? Arsenic-based?

Depends on who you ask. As I briefly mentioned there are other theoretical bases in Nitrogen and Phosphorus, but as I also said they are far from fully credible (both of them being woefully inefficient bases to start with). There's some other theories but they're so far out from likely that I can't even remember them.

POMC S117 wrote:Are non-carbon and non-silicon based lifeforms possible? Arsenic-based?

It's to do with whether the atoms in question can form molecules big enough to transmit biological information. Carbon and silicon both have 4 available 'slots', if you will, for other atoms, and form large individual molecules. Carbon also goes into a low-energy state when it bonds just because it has that much space available and so is very stable; silicon does the same, just not on our planet. Something like arsenic, with low bond energy and low reactivity, simply doesn't have enough energy or size to hold an organism together.

Arch-Mage Matt wrote:@Tom: What if we don't find life through communication, but through searching on Mars (PROTHEANS) or through the Hubble telescope or something similar?

PROTHEANS

Like I said, it depends on when they developed. You point a telescope at a planet 50,000 light years away and you see the surface of that planet 50,000 years ago. So if someone on that planet is looking at us right now, they won't see anything because humans haven't developed yet to their eyes.

I must research them!

Oh, well, yeah, if you want to make friends with single-celled organisms then by all means set sensors to arsenic mode. Arsenic biochemistry is like 56k copper wires while carbon is fibre optics.

So carbon is light and flexible and light travels through it at.... Just kidding.

Why do we never do interesting things in Physics,C Chemistry and Biology! Things like this!

Of course aliens are out there. Not to far away, either.

Not trying to sound smug or anything but there is a module on my physics course this year that basically amounts to astrophysics and xenobiology.

Why do we not do that!

Yes they exist other then that I can't say. I don't think we have made contact but we might do so one day never know. Here is a quick note to read over if you somehow become the first one to make contact with aliens.
http://files.redux.com/images/1b4e21c01 ... 4c56dd/raw

POMC S117 wrote:More discussion!

Will we discover aliens in our life time?

We should avoid them.