That was the sobering thought I heard as a kid about our solar system. On a statistical basis alone, it is almost impossible to believe we are the only planet with life. Admittedly, life on those other planets probably did not evolve the way life did here, but it is something to think about.
Of course, my engineering mind says stop trying to broadcast to others in the universe that we are here! They may not have the best of intentions for us if they found out just how nice it is here.
An article in the USA Today struck me along with the artist rendering of what that planet might look like. The article said that scientists have found one “nearby planet” that is ONLY 100 light-years away.
So, given we traveled there at the speed of light we would all die in transit since it is 100 years away. And, if they were looking at earth they would see it as it was 100 years ago.
Also, do we really think we can travel at those speeds? It is nice to talk about 100 years of time for light to be seen from a distant object because that is how old the image is we are viewing. But, to put this in travel terms, the Mars landing expedition took the better part of a year to get there. Light would take just over 3 minutes to get to Mars.
It would be really interesting to see what the average person in the world thinks about this.
Do they understand how truly silly it is to think about things like this?
How about we spend more time cleaning up our act here?