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Stellarator
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Do you think we are alone in the Milky Way?

05 Mar 2019 01:59

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Or not.  One can argue that the K-T event was the start of the age of mammals, and here we are.  Whether it was necessary that the dinosaurs went away for something like us to evolve is certainly debatable, and so is what the outcome of evolution would be if there had been no K-T event, but without it, life on Earth would certainly be very different.
Yes, I remember reading a paleontology paper a while back which stated that the lineage leading to the rise of the Great Apes was ALREADY present during the Late Cretaceous, and that primates would have evolved more or less along the same timelines as they did without the dinosaurs. But it is really hard to say for sure, because alot of other climatological factors effected primate evolution.
but our galaxy is huge and we are a very rural part of the galaxy,
I don't think so. There is such a concept known as galactic habitability zones, and the region our sun inhabites lies square in the center of it. It orbits between highly active spiral arms and does not swing too close to the dangerous galactic nuclei regions. Furthermore, Sol wasn't formed too far out into the metal-poor outer regions wherein terrestrial planets might be rarer in solar-systems. Like all habitable zones, there are exceptions and particularily exotic or highly technological life may exist everywhere - but  populations of naturally-occuring organic life should be denser in galactic regions similar to the one our sun currently inhabits :).
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Do you think we are alone in the Milky Way?

05 Mar 2019 02:33

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No I mean perhaps we would have been reptilians instead of mammals.  Reptiles were evolving towards warm bloodedness and taking care of their young.  There is nothing inherently special about mammals that intelligent species should only arise from them.

As far as technological space faring species, I meant that I feel they would naturally migrate to the center of galaxies (which are usually obscured by dust) because that's where the largest supply of energy and resources are.  They could tap into all that energy to fuel their civilizations!  When they reach the interstellar stage I feel like they will eventually abandon their home worlds and perhaps in the distant future even forget where they were located (like Foundation and Earth.)   This is particularly true if their home planet was somehow destroyed (like if the parent star went into the Red Giant phase or went nova.)
 
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Do you think we are alone in the Milky Way?

05 Mar 2019 02:57

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As far as technological space faring species, I meant that I feel they would naturally migrate to the center of galaxies (which are usually obscured by dust) because that's where the largest supply of energy and resources are.  They could tap into all that energy to fuel their civilizations!
You are right, and I am rather fond of the idea of a Matrioshka super-shell world surrounding the super-blackhole in the galactic center as the capital for a giant interstellar empire. But an opposing thought is that a lot of technological civilizations, especially  those that rely on precise computation, would want to migrate to the outer regions of a galaxy (or even to intergalatic space), because computing would be much more efficient in an environment with less ambient heat.
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Do you think we are alone in the Milky Way?

05 Mar 2019 03:09

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Yes that would be like supercooling your gaming computer with liquid nitrogen!  I myself like "migrating" to procedural planets at the edge of galaxies or even in satellite galaxies because they offer up some of the most amazing views of the totality of the galaxies they are on the outside edges of.  Do you know of any real planets that are on the edge of galaxies in SE or of any real planets discovered in the LMC or SMC?
 
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Do you think we are alone in the Milky Way?

05 Mar 2019 03:25

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Do you know of any real planets that are on the edge of galaxies in SE or of any real planets discovered in the LMC or SMC?
Hmmm, not off the top of my head. It's probably rare for astronomers to detect exoplanets in the galactic outer regions, because there is a lot of 'stuff' in between us and the outer-most arm. But panets have been found in globular clusters, in the galactic halo, in the remains of a consumed dwarf galaxy, possibly in the Andromeda galaxy and of course in the LMC (I wish I could find a link to the last one. I remember reading about it in Astronomy magazine).
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Do you think we are alone in the Milky Way?

05 Mar 2019 03:33

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planets in globular clusters are awesome too!  they would have great views, as long as a Nightfall like catastrophe did not occur!  SE has procedural planets orbiting R136a1- what a scorcher that would be!  There's a photogenic one that orbits Eta Carinae too, that one has deep canyons!
 
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Do you think we are alone in the Milky Way?

05 Mar 2019 03:36

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as long as a Nightfall like catastrophe did not occur!
Nightfall? Is that a book?
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Do you think we are alone in the Milky Way?

05 Mar 2019 03:40

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as long as a Nightfall like catastrophe did not occur!
Nightfall? Is that a book?
Yes, first a long short story that was a classic, then a novel and then a JackDole SE add on haha!
Speaking of extragalactic planets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extragalactic_planet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall ... and_novel)
Lots of science papers have been written about what such a star system would be like.
 
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Extraterrestrial Intelligence Thread

19 Nov 2019 06:37

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A small amount of time biologically or geologically, can be a huge amount of time technologically- imagine how much more advanced life could have become on our planet had the K-T event not occurred, perhaps a 65 million year head start!
Or not.  One can argue that the K-T event was the start of the age of mammals, and here we are.  Whether it was necessary that the dinosaurs went away for something like us to evolve is certainly debatable, and so is what the outcome of evolution would be if there had been no K-T event, but without it, life on Earth would certainly be very different.  Catastrophic events aren't necessarily bad for evolution.  Bad for some species, but change opens niches to be filled by others, and evolution speeds up.  Some change is good.

So, if life starts on a planet around a quiet sun and in a quiet solar system for billion of years, would advanced life evolve, or would life simply evolve into a stable configuration and then stall?
I read a post by Stellarator indicating that the lineage of the primates was already present even during the Cretaceous period.  I think there are many roads to sentience/intelligent life and the primate road isn't the only one.  A highly advanced reptile could just as easily have been that species.  If you look at what the dinosaurs were becoming just before the K-T period, they were developing much larger brains, hunting in packs, becoming warm blooded and taking care of their young.

Yes, some change is good, it depends on whether the change disastrously alters the natural balance (e.g., human-caused changes) or changes are part of a natural pattern that periodically recurs.
 
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Extraterrestrial Intelligence Thread

20 Nov 2019 19:15

I think if we were alive at the time of the KT impact event, or the Permian-Triassic boundary, we'd have very negative views about the situation, despite them being natural events. :)
 
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Extraterrestrial Intelligence Thread

22 Nov 2019 12:13

I think if we were alive at the time of the KT impact event, or the Permian-Triassic boundary, we'd have very negative views about the situation, despite them being natural events. :)
Indeed, but I am thinking of them more from a nonemotional planetary perspective, rather than one of survival of any one species.  I think Mid is talking about its impact on biodiversity and accelerated evolution also.
As far humanity induced changes, we can't be sure of how it would be something the planet can recover from because of the timescales involved.  I think life would still exist because things like microbes and lichen are highly resistant to toxins and even radiation and can even survive on the outside of the ISS.  But as far as life on a higher scale, we just dont know what would happen after a humanity-induced mass extinction event.
We're already seeing the impacts of us dumping toxic waste; I recently read a scientific paper that found a strong connection between toxic waste dump sites and autism clusters in the state of NJ.  Scientists working for the state have drawn maps to show the proximity of autism clusters to where toxic waste dump sites are.  DuPont was one of the violators; they dumped and hid info they had linking PFOA/PFOS contamination to birth defects until they were massively sued.

http://www.imusenvironmentalhealth.org/ ... ew-jersey/

https://www.politifact.com/health-check ... ays-withi/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091342/

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... oss_States

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4929984/

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/27da/3 ... 37e614.pdf

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