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Aug. 10th, 2007 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akeyoftimeI went out to lunch with mother today. I forget how much fun we can have together, how conspiratorial and "Girls Only" it can get. I think we'll have fun when she heads east with me to help me move back into the city.
Dad and I spent some time outside tonight, watching for meteors. They were supposed to be falling through the North-East corner of the sky, so we found ourselves some chairs and gazed skywards for a while. I think I might have seen one, but I've never seen a meteor before, only in movies, and those are hardly a basis for comparison. We also saw something was probably a plane, but unusually high and moving incredibly fast, too fast for a plane, says dad. We theorized that it might be the space station up in orbit, but even if it did pass overhead, it seems unlikely that we could see the blinking lights.
Unsurprisingly, we got into a talk about space and space travel and all sorts of wonderful things. I've thought for a long time that it seems very unlikely that this is the only planet in the whole of the universe that has any life on it. I'm not expecting to meet any aliens, ever, but I can't help but think there's something out there. Dad told me about some scientists (and I'm really sorry that I don't have any links, or any studies I can refer you to) who plugged a bunch of numbers into a bunch of calculations, estimating the number of stars, taking a certain fraction to have planets, a certain fraction to be able to support life (as we know it), and undoubtedly a whole whack of other variables. All of this number crunching led these scientists to hypothesize that in our galaxy, there are approximately 400,000 civilizations. It's certainly not to say they'll all exist now (they assumed the run of a civilization to be 100,000 years) and that they will all have the technology necessary to reach out to the stars, even just to place a very long-distance phone call. But it's an interesting look at things. As a sci-fi fan, I read and watch stories that fill the skies with lots and lots of alien creatures; space is absolutely full. But wouldn't it be something if, when humans finally got up there, there was nothing? The skies were almost completely empty? It's a sobering thought, compared to all of our imaginings.
Dad and I spent some time outside tonight, watching for meteors. They were supposed to be falling through the North-East corner of the sky, so we found ourselves some chairs and gazed skywards for a while. I think I might have seen one, but I've never seen a meteor before, only in movies, and those are hardly a basis for comparison. We also saw something was probably a plane, but unusually high and moving incredibly fast, too fast for a plane, says dad. We theorized that it might be the space station up in orbit, but even if it did pass overhead, it seems unlikely that we could see the blinking lights.
Unsurprisingly, we got into a talk about space and space travel and all sorts of wonderful things. I've thought for a long time that it seems very unlikely that this is the only planet in the whole of the universe that has any life on it. I'm not expecting to meet any aliens, ever, but I can't help but think there's something out there. Dad told me about some scientists (and I'm really sorry that I don't have any links, or any studies I can refer you to) who plugged a bunch of numbers into a bunch of calculations, estimating the number of stars, taking a certain fraction to have planets, a certain fraction to be able to support life (as we know it), and undoubtedly a whole whack of other variables. All of this number crunching led these scientists to hypothesize that in our galaxy, there are approximately 400,000 civilizations. It's certainly not to say they'll all exist now (they assumed the run of a civilization to be 100,000 years) and that they will all have the technology necessary to reach out to the stars, even just to place a very long-distance phone call. But it's an interesting look at things. As a sci-fi fan, I read and watch stories that fill the skies with lots and lots of alien creatures; space is absolutely full. But wouldn't it be something if, when humans finally got up there, there was nothing? The skies were almost completely empty? It's a sobering thought, compared to all of our imaginings.
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Date: 2007-08-11 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-11 04:21 pm (UTC)also, fast-moving high-up things, i find, tend to be satellites. they usually have some lights on them so that you can see them.
... in terms of alien life, holy. i usually avoid thinking about that, because i think that human life is complicated enough as it is, without worrying about how we are compared to infinite varieties of other life. the statistics point to a very huge probability that there is SOMETHING else, but who knows if it's something that the limited scope of human senses could ever detect or identify? the likelihood that life may exist in more than the three dimensions and five senses that we have at our disposal is too mind-boggling to even theorize.
besides, human conceptualizations of alien life consistently creep me out. that whole skinny, big-eyed green martian idea? CREEPY.
independence day and mars attacks are like, the most terrifying movies ever.