very true and the other side of it is maybe life has not gone to the stage of having radio receivers yet or gone to the point where they turned them off to go digital. someone should have told them they need digital box by the end of next month ;)

also anyway our signals travel at light speed hitting the nearest star around now(ish) but sure life could be hundreds of thousands of light years away and signals decay. Unless like star trek we get something that allows faster than light travel we will never ever know whats beyond our solar system. As much as science bends rule the speed of light is the limit no getting around that.

billions of stars in our galaxy, billions of galaxies, so on average there are hundreds of billions if not trillions of stars out there and most do have planets so odds are one of them has got to be like us.

That’s the penultimate question. The ultimate question is does everything have to have a reason?

@john SETI inviting disaster or what!? We tell children and the gullible not to talk to strangers on the www then spend billions on attempting just that ….weird.

The pre-penultimate question – why isn’t there more?

The wrong question. There is something & nothing is coming.

John, but what would nothing be or look like or not look like? It wrecks my head just thinking about it.

Let me put it another way. Why is there some thing rather than no thing?

Let me put it another way. Why do you think there’s a reason?

@John Turkey When you ask if everything must have a reason do you mean “does everything have a cause?”

“The heavens declare the glory of the Lord” – depends on how you look at it whether or not you see a designer. My Toyota was obviously designed and it’s a lot less complex than the universe…

Kieran agreed. Your toyota is most definitely designed. Its not really that complex. However looking at the cosmos shows that the complexity of it is beyond design. We dont need a designer the cosmos is too beautiful. Our explanations of it up to recently are primative & superstitious & designed to comfort our insecurities. A designer is a pitiful explanation.

Mj – “complexity beyond design”? That’s an oxymoron.
“A pitiful explanation”? Why? Because it does not conform to your worldview? Would that be as pitiful as, say, the idea that the whole universe started as an explosion in a full stop and that’s the origin of the eye and the brain and the banana and the Toyota?

F##k me the origin of the banana the toyota the eye. Thats creationist lingo. Are you from the US? I thought you were extinct in Europe. Im sorry debate over I can not debate with you. I have a 2, 4, 7 & 10 year old to educate & enlighten. I feel they maybe more open to the debate. They may not agree me but a least they will not be influenced by creationists.

Kieran
all your argument does is try to simplify a complex question.
It is not simple.
Just because you need to simplify things – that some sky fairy made the universe, does not make it true – or even plausible

I think it was Carl Sagan said – we are the universe contemplating itself; go figure!

Puts all our squabbling into perspective

Anything faster than light speed would be considered time travel

Ther eis evidence of Intelligent life, we are it. What more evidence do you need ? Or are you looking for more than us ?

Can you tell all that by looking at that photo. Cool.

Bit like the Dail!!!! Boom Boom

Did you expect to see ET waving at you?

google the fermi paradox

I did that David, thanks

Google the Fermi Paradox….. I swear when I read that first I thought it was the name of some cute ET- like alien…

God was a bit of a splatter painter …. You’d think he’d have concentrated more on making us properly in his “image” so that people wouldn’t suffer and die from horrible diseases

…tis good to wonder..

You may be thinking of the:

Hubble Deep Field from 1995 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field
Hubble Ultra Deep Filed from 2003 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra-Deep_Field

This is the Extreme Deep Field, released yesterday

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

Lame! I love these offbeat articles in the journal- more to it all than the EU and the IMF and the fickle goddamn markets!

It’s a stunning image.

Cheers John – saved me a bit of work answering there!
Thanks Ailís – we aim to please ;)

Not all our articles are epics, sir. In this case, it’s sensible to let the stunning pic speak for itself. And I thought NASA’s explanation might be worth including because I am not *actually* a rocket scientist. Hard to believe, I know ;)

Yeah, but you were wrong – the picture is from yesterday and “bored search engine hunting” is neither true nor constructive. Cheers, S

It may have a typo, but at least it has some semblance of punctuation.