Dear Easy Times,

I've always believed that there are other life forms somewhere "out there," and that sooner or later we will discover signs of them. If
they do find something on Mars - I for one won't be surprised, but
excited.

Why should ours be the only planet in the universe that has life forms on it?

I also think that we as a species in order to survive need to keep on looking as eventually our future will be linked to those of other planets. As our earth changes climatically - our choices for survival needs to be expanded.

Astronomy records indicate that solar systems eventually disintegrate, thus inevitably our solar system will eventually do the same. Let us hope that before that time comes humanity will find other solar systems to inhabit.

Pericles,

According to Richard Leakey the average life space of a species on Earth is four million years.

On Mars, even if the atoms arranged in such a way to allow basic aperiodicals, there might have been unrealised potential for the devlopment of haploids. Even the discovery of a precursor to an hereditary mechanism would be a most significant discovery. It would show life can exist,and, only that favourable ecological conditions need to be added -as happened on Earth- for its further development.

Given a discovery of this basic nature and the billions of climatic conditions on planets across the universe, such a finding would suggest higher forms of life in other solar systems, probable.

If found, I hope it has a different DNA print, so the religionists can't say, it, what would have been found, was simply carried through space, after a meteor hit Earth, after god this planet for created for us.

"from the minds of people who want to ralionalise what they dont understand"?
Sorry snake... the worlds awareness of God (and the other side) hasnt come that way.
All of history is events eyewitnessed and recorded or shortly thereafter the eyewitnessing, recorded... while the events are still in the individual or the culture.
There are too many eyewitness testimonies recorded in the Bible and outside of the Bible, as in history books, for the truth not to be there that God is real and the war is a genuine war and not a made up conflict.
Hundreds of millions of born again christians in history speaking about how The Holy Spirit has Come and set them free.
Christian bookshops likewise are full of testimonies about God and the war from people in the current age.
What do we pray for? That guys like you Snake come to Jesus and get born again.
Giving your life to Christ and receiving what He did on the Cross with his Shed Blood immediately jumps you right over the Final judgment and the lake of fire and into Heaven:)

I already discovered "Life on Mars." Best television show I've seen in years. Can't wait until "Ashes to Ashes come out on the ABC here :-)

Pericles you are 100% right with regards to our place in time and space. I think the quote is 2 seconds to midnight with regards to our place in the history of our earth let alone the universe so as you said a lot can happen and we have been around for just a tiny mirco second in the overall scheme of things. Who knows earth may have been visited by “others” in the Triassic period or the Jurassic period we will never know all we know is that in the last 5000 years no little green men have dropped in to say hello and with the size and breadth of the universe there are a lot of other things to see and do then just visit little old earth.

gw – You say “earths remoteness” is our star on average further away then most other stars are to the parts of the galaxy where “all the action is”?

You are right about the gamma ray burst if it is big enough it could wipe out all life on earth, although they are a regular occance it just the big dose of gamma rays is what will kill us.

There is a big star very close to us ready to go super nova very soon called “Eta Carinae” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae and its very over due so hold on.

When it does go bang and if we all live to tell the story it will probably be a very spectacular site seeing what was said about a similar incident in 1054AD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054

Romany - I am not trying to make people worried I am merely putting forward an observation made by a great philosopher/futurist. We are all going to die one day so the end is always near.

As you said Romany we have no proof of the size of space but I think it is similar too the concept we call “time” that being it is infinite with no start or finish. To say that the universe and time have boundaries would be a total paradox but then again to say that they dont have boundaries would also create a paradox. If either are correct it would boggle the mind and one of them has to be!

Oliver – You don’t even need oxygen to support “life” http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22232138-30417,00.html as you can see by this example we have a very narrow concept of what life actually is. Silicon based life forms are possible and these could evolve almost anywhere seeing that they don’t need the complex imputs that humans and other life on earth require.

Foxy – You are right we should keep looking for signs of life and expanding our knowledge of science and the universe. It’s a very exciting time to be alive