Are we alone? | Teen Ink

Are we alone?

May 11, 2012
By lstephen93 BRONZE, Richmond, Texas
lstephen93 BRONZE, Richmond, Texas
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Are we alone cuts to the big question on how we see ourselves in the Universe, and I think we’re not for one factor the Universe is infinite. Mathematically speaking if the chances of another planet just like earth to exist were .00000001% the Universe is so big that there should be billions of planets just like our own, and by that I mean that can support life. In our galaxy alone, the Milky Way (Which we don’t even know what it looks like) has proximately 200-400 billion stars which at least 10 billion should have planets in the habital zone, and there being over 200 billion other galaxies that contain hundreds of billion stars. The nearest star to our own solar system Alpha Centauri may have possible planets that can harbor life but it’s so far that it would take 4.73 light years, but it would take 80 years using the speed of our latest technology since we haven’t achieved the speed of light yet. The numbers alone make thinking of aliens perfectly rational. There’s even some signs of possible life in our solar system ranging from microorganism on mars to a water world on of Jupiter’s moon. Europa, it’s covered in ice and some scientist believe under the ice should be liquid water which is essential for life. Intelligent life is going to be a little more rare, and some people might ask if the universe is so big and filled with other life why haven’t we’ve been contact with another alien life, it’s just the universe is too vast. Life may come and go in the blink of an eye speaking universe time. Just a couple of years ago we actually discovered how to locate other planets, and since then we’ve found a couple of candidates, not perfect, but planets in the habital zone. Keppler 22b one of the planets recently discovered is twice the size of earth and is 600 light years away is the first planet that is actually in the goldlie-lock zone(habital zone), and 1,000 more candidates and 10 of these are “near-earth-size”. In time while technology advances we should find life during our lifetime, not intelligent life but maybe some type of bacteria or organism, or maybe even ocean full of exotic marine life. The Milky Way galaxy is just a drop in the cosmic ocean, and if we don’t find life maybe it’s up to us to seed The Universe and discover its mysteries. The Universe infinite and vast making it really difficult to think we really are alone.



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