Where are the Aliens? Fermi Paradox. Great Filter. Are we alone?

[Baldanders]

It's an interesting phenomena for sure. I appreciate that the researchers and authors are trying to use Life as their "we've excluded all other reasonable explanations" option - as opposed to just opting for, "Evidence of Life on another planet!" And grabbing a by-line.

Maybe it shouldn't surprise me that it turns out we were looking at the wrong planet. Mars has no atmosphere and at best we were going to find evidence of past Life on its surface, not present.

I believe the upper atmosphere of Venus is about the only place in the Solar System where humans could breathe the natural gas mix, besides Earth.

Considering the hellhole of the surface, I understand why no one was looking too hard for life there, though. Even our toughest robots can't make it there for a whole day.

[Baldanders]

I know that sanitizing anything that's headed to another planet is a yuge deal among those who do that kind of stuff. We don't want to go all the way to another planet to find life and discover that it looks exactly like what's here.

My biggest fear on this latest news is that we find out some bizzare unknown Terran microbe hitched a ride with a Russian probe and colonized the upper atmosphere of Venus. Although, I guess that would lead to some interesting science as well, but not as interesting as native life by a longshot.

[Stephanie B]

Considering the hellhole of the surface, I understand why no one was looking too hard for life there, though. Even our toughest robots can't make it there for a whole day.

Hell, the record for a lander on Venus is about two hours. Only the Soviets managed to pull off deliberate landings there. Clouds of sulfuric acid, over 800degF at the surface and the surface atmospheric pressure is about equivalent to being at an Earth ocean depth of 3,000'; it's a challenging place to land.

[Baldanders]

Hell, the record for a lander on Venus is about two hours. Only the Soviets managed to pull off deliberate landings there. Clouds of sulfuric acid, over 800degF at the surface and the surface atmospheric pressure is about equivalent to being at an Earth ocean depth of 3,000'; it's a challenging place to land.

And what are the chances we could get a sample of dirt out of the gravity well? A launch from the surface would be a technological leap in a few different ways, and launching from a floating platform in the upper atmosphere to bring back an atmospheric sample seems challenging as well.

Maybe a manned orbiter teleoperating disposable probes with some electron microscopes and the like on board?

It'd probably only be the most expensive engineering project ever....😉

[the Schwartz]

Personally, I'm pumped. If this is in fact even the most basic life, it is a massive step forward. At least now we would know it's possible.

Barring the result of some project or expedition that I'm unaware of (which could be nearly anything, I'm hardly in the business so to speak) I don't expect to find plant or animal life as we would recognize it in my lifetime. But just to have some small bit of proof that we are truly not the only life forms in the universe...that'd be pretty amazing. And if we found this literally next door, what else is out there?

It would certainly change what we currently think we know [that life is a one-time 'accident']. With two examples of life arising in just one solar system, the probabilty of both the frequency and complexity of life in other systems becomes significant, dare I say tremendous.

I am not aware of other naturally occurring chemical processes that produce the phospines they've detected in Venus' atmosphere, so this might be 'it'. Sure hope so, even if its nothing more than a few single microbes, as it ensures that there is so much more to discover.

[Caballoflaco]

The Pentagon has acknowledged more videos and photos of unidentified aerial vehicles. I’m curious if there will be an actual report released in June as mentioned in the video.

[Borderland]

Bigghoss has it right..until we can devlop the ability to travel in space at light speed,we're going to have to be happy poking around the Moon, or possibly Mars, the simple fact is.. we're too slow, and space itself is too big. So, until we can travel around out there in a timely fashion (meaning light speed) we'll never really know who, or what's out there.. and anything else is theory, or speculation..

Traveling at light speed raises another question..What happens to time, if you travel at light speed, say for years at a time??

That's easy. You travel into the future as we know it, but I'm not sure that we know what time really looks like outside of our solar system. If we had a vehicle that could travel at the speed of light here on earth we could travel into the future. Personally, I don't think you want to mess with it because you might end up with a Planet of the Apes situation or a Libertarian president if you ever came back after traveling outside our solar system for more than a few minutes. I'm just guessing here because I didn't do the math but I can if you want. No, never mind. Light years are distance in our concept of time.