Comment on Alien life in Universe: Scientists say finding it is 'only a matter of time'
Weslee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This might be really obvious, but I’ve never heard anyone mention it specifically - it’s well known that light takes time to reach us, so when we look at far away objects, we are also looking back in time - surely this has a huge impact on detecting life?
If we were able to see what planets that could support life look like as they are currently, then perhaps we would see life?
PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world 1 year ago
We’re not talking about planets hundreds of millions of light years. We’re taking about planets a few to hundreds of light years away.
That is nothing. There’s been life on earth basically as soon as it cooled enough to not be a molten ball of rock. Like 3 billion years ago.
Weslee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah but to see actual signs of life on those planets we’d need to either be able to see clear images of the surface, or have some way (other than the light method we use ATM) to detect microscopic lifeforms, right?
PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m glad that you’re trying to understand! That’s awesome.
So, I don’t want to be rude, but your lack of knowledge is far too severe for me to correct in a post.
You are correct about spectrography being used in determining if there’s life on a planet, but there’s just so much that you don’t yet know.
If you haven’t seen it, watch the original Carl Sagan Cosmos.