It kind of belongs here- It has political consequences- Extraterrestrials.

[barfbag]

When dealing with planets from other galaxies, we have to take into account that there's likely to be elements we've never heard of. We may still be incapable of communicating with other intelligent life. The ideas of animal classification, eating three meals a day, going to the bathroom, sleeping at night, working, reproduction, and anything else necessary for life could be very foreign ideas on other galaxies. Or perhaps, they could all be identical to us, but then does that negate the notion of free will?

[Person Man]

When dealing with planets from other galaxies, we have to take into account that there's likely to be elements we've never heard of. We may still be incapable of communicating with other intelligent life. The ideas of animal classification, eating three meals a day, going to the bathroom, sleeping at night, working, reproduction, and anything else necessary for life could be very foreign ideas on other galaxies. Or perhaps, they could all be identical to us, but then does that negate the notion of free will?

If ET turns out to be close enough like us or if we didn't find a exosolar planet that we had some evidence of habitation of (Hubble 2.0 looks at all the Earth Like planets we have found and finds they are no different than Mars or Venus), it would be the only two things that would make me reconsider Conservative Christian "teachings" about the beginning.

But I figure that intelligent life can only take so many different forms, some of them will be easier than others to relate to.

[Ban my account ffs!]

We'll find out when we're ready.

[MalaspinaGold]

When dealing with planets from other galaxies, we have to take into account that there's likely to be elements we've never heard of. We may still be incapable of communicating with other intelligent life. The ideas of animal classification, eating three meals a day, going to the bathroom, sleeping at night, working, reproduction, and anything else necessary for life could be very foreign ideas on other galaxies. Or perhaps, they could all be identical to us, but then does that negate the notion of free will?

Time for a science lesson
The universe is 90+% hydrogen
most of the rest is helium
The reason other elements exist is that they were formed by nuclear fusion (elements up to iron) or supernovas (iron-uranium, with small traces of a few higher elements such as neptunium and plutonium)
An element is an element because it has a certain number of protons in its nucleus. The laws regarding atomic/particle physics are universal. There are no mysterious "other" elements hiding around. Any extraterrestrial life would have to be made of known elements, whether it be carbon, silicon, or some other element-based.

Almost certainly life exists in other places, but considering how vast and low-density the universe is, there would be almost no way to establish contact.

[Person Man]

When dealing with planets from other galaxies, we have to take into account that there's likely to be elements we've never heard of. We may still be incapable of communicating with other intelligent life. The ideas of animal classification, eating three meals a day, going to the bathroom, sleeping at night, working, reproduction, and anything else necessary for life could be very foreign ideas on other galaxies. Or perhaps, they could all be identical to us, but then does that negate the notion of free will?

Time for a science lesson
The universe is 90+% hydrogen
most of the rest is helium
The reason other elements exist is that they were formed by nuclear fusion (elements up to iron) or supernovas (iron-uranium, with small traces of a few higher elements such as neptunium and plutonium)
An element is an element because it has a certain number of protons in its nucleus. The laws regarding atomic/particle physics are universal. There are no mysterious "other" elements hiding around. Any extraterrestrial life would have to be made of known elements, whether it be carbon, silicon, or some other element-based.

Almost certainly life exists in other places, but considering how vast and low-density the universe is, there would be almost no way to establish contact.

Like I said, it could still be possible to prove to a point that there are planets with life in a few years with telescopes that can make out the atmospheres of the potentially habitable planets we found with Kepler but the only way we find little green men is if warp drive is possible and we can build it.

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

Any undiscovered elements would be extremely radioactive with half lives of less than a second and have massive nuclei on the order of 120+ protons per atom. So no new elements to be found but I'm sure new compounds and reactions we haven't heard of. Or perhaps life even exists within dark matter and WIMPs, possible using the Weak Electromagnetic Force as we use electricity. The possibilities are endless and like barfbag said we may nit be able to communicate with them at all.
.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Y'all do realize that "elements" doesn't have to mean "chemical elements" don't you?

[barfbag]

Y'all do realize that "elements" doesn't have to mean "chemical elements" don't you?

Elements could mean anything when dealing with outer space.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It seems highly improbable that there isn't.

[Person Man]

Any undiscovered elements would be extremely radioactive with half lives of less than a second and have massive nuclei on the order of 120+ protons per atom. So no new elements to be found but I'm sure new compounds and reactions we haven't heard of. Or perhaps life even exists within dark matter and WIMPs, possible using the Weak Electromagnetic Force as we use electricity. The possibilities are endless and like barfbag said we may nit be able to communicate with them at all.
.

Although I heard that there was a possibility of "an island of stability" for elements way beyond 120 protons but there presence wouldn't be the source of life but because they would be impossible in nature, it would be a sign of intelligent life. Just like in Stargate when they found aliens that use Naqadah, an ultra heavy synthesized and relatively stable radioactive element, that could be used to create fusion-like power from "conventional" nuclear fission...so it just took the USAF learning the trick to making that element to build  .6c spaceships with year 2000 technology.

[Space7]

Any undiscovered elements would be extremely radioactive with half lives of less than a second and have massive nuclei on the order of 120+ protons per atom. So no new elements to be found but I'm sure new compounds and reactions we haven't heard of. Or perhaps life even exists within dark matter and WIMPs, possible using the Weak Electromagnetic Force as we use electricity. The possibilities are endless and like barfbag said we may nit be able to communicate with them at all.
.

Although I heard that there was a possibility of "an island of stability" for elements way beyond 120 protons but there presence wouldn't be the source of life but because they would be impossible in nature, it would be a sign of intelligent life. Just like in Stargate when they found aliens that use Naqadah, an ultra heavy synthesized and relatively stable radioactive element, that could be used to create fusion-like power from "conventional" nuclear fission...so it just took the USAF learning the trick to making that element to build  .6c spaceships with year 2000 technology.

It's cool that someone else has heard of the "island of stability", but I have to point out that the so-called "island of stability" would only extend about as far as element 125, and would contain atoms so unstable that they would spontaneously dissipate almost instantly. We probably wouldn't be able to see them in time if another race made them.

When dealing with planets from other galaxies...

Woah, galaxies? There's a massive technological leap between space-travel and inter-stellar travel, and then there's another, even bigger one that we shouldn't even contemplate right now to galactic travel.

Physics do not change throughout your position in the universe, as is evidenced by the fact that all galaxies throughout the universe appear to be formed by the same principles, and appear to contain the same elements. Planets in the Milky Way would not look particularly different than planets in Andromeda galaxy, the nearest spiral galaxy.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't think about intergalactic travel, just that it's pretty much pointless right now when our own galaxy is pretty much the same, and is just as massive or more massive than any other galaxy in the near vicinity.

Also, for anyone interested in looking at just how massive the distances are that are involved, this website, "Atlas of the Universe" does a pretty good job:

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/

Since the smallest scale on this website is 10 light years, I'll mention that the distance from the Earth to the Sun is about 0.000015 light years.

[Person Man]

What do you think about the exosolar planets that are said to be Earth-like? You have heard of James Webb?

[Space7]

What do you think about the exosolar planets that are said to be Earth-like?

I'm not surprised by them. They were expected to exist, and now we found them (262 that are considered potentially habitable, 927 in total). We haven't found anything extremely to Earth yet but that is most likely a result of the fact that larger exoplanets are much easier to find.

We have no end of stars to choose from though, we're bound to find a very similar planet eventually (it is expected that, on average, about 1 planet orbits each star. Our Solar System is unusual in having 8 planets, but not unheard of, nor unexpected. A solar system with more planets is more likely to sustain life based on land area alone).

You have heard of James Webb?

This post made my day because I had heard of it before, but I thought it had been postponed indefinitely.

I see now that the project has been given the stamp of approval and is moving ahead. Good, because by the time it's up in space (2018) Hubble will likely be nonoperational. Hubble is expected to stop functioning between 2014 and 2020. Epic Space discoveries ahead!

[barfbag]

Let's think about this though. The way Star Trek travels through space and time is theoretically possible and therefore we could theoretically discover intelligent life thousands of years in the future?

[Space7]

Let's think about this though. The way Star Trek travels through space and time is theoretically possible and therefore we could theoretically discover intelligent life thousands of years in the future?

I assume you are referring to the Alcubierre drive? Or time dilation perhaps?

The Alcubierre drive (in preliminary testing at NASA) is a hypothetical means of Faster-than-light propulsion which would be achieved through a constitutional loophole loophole in the laws of physics. That is, the spaceship would contract spacetime ahead of it while expanding spacetime behind it. This would require a negative energy density, and would therefore require some sort of "exotic matter", which would presumably be difficult to use. The drive also, theoretically, would have the unfortunate side-effect of, eh, backwards time travel. Not for the spaceship itself, but for certain parts of the space around it, which is a violation of causality. In any case, there's an insane amount of technological hurdles that would need to be overcome before the theory is even plausible. It's possible that it couldn't work at all.

I don't think I'm really qualified to explain the entire set of problems though, try Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albucurrie_drive

Time dilation is much more "real" than the Albucurrie drive, though. It has been proven to work, regardless of how sci-fi-y it sounds.

Time dilation is basically the fact of the universe that, the closer something gets to the speed of light, the slower time moves for that object (though to the object, it will appear to travel at the same rate).

An example would be better.

Say you had a spaceship that could go almost-at-the-speed-of-light. If you got into it and flew around at almost-the-speed-of-light for, say, an day, you could come back to your starting point and find a year had past since you left. The time elapsed would depend on how close you were to the speed of light.

This means that if you decided to go to a hypothetical alien civilization 25 light-years away at almost-the-speed-of-light, to you, it would appear to take an hour. You would only age an hour. Despite this, in reality, it took you Twenty-five years to get there.

So if you had a super fast spaceship, effectively, you can take a one-way trip into the future.

Maybe in the future they have invented a way of getting back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation