Will humans discover life on another planet in the next 200 years?
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 15113 votes
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
Next 50 ears is likely (Score:3, Interesting)
Telescopes keep getting better. Shortly we will be able to detect oxygen molecules of various types (02 is normal, but 04 is also possible)
Oxygen is by nature a very reactive element. It can't exist naturally in an atmosphere unless life is generating it. If there is any photosynthesizing life on a planet, it will create enough oxygen that we can detect it.
We should have something capable of doing this within 25 years, and it won't take more than another 25 years of looking to
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>> If there is any photosynthesizing life on a planet, it will create enough oxygen that we can detect it.
I think you're making a very large number of assumptions there.
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>>It can't exist naturally in an atmosphere unless life is generating it.
I think this is an old assumption that has been debunked.
Re:Next 50 ears is likely (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ozone Layer (Score:4, Insightful)
Just no.
That's a spurious counterexample. Why? While it's true that the ozone layer was not produced by living organisms, it relies on the existence of something (O2) that was. That is, O2 is necessary for the formation of O3, and life is (so far as we know it) necessary for the formation of O2. Again, please cite your source that shows how O2 is naturally produced without invoking some life process.
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so potentially wrong on so many levels... you're assuming life, let alone intelligent life, requires oxygen. And, of course, oxygen can exist without "life". /. in all these years)
--
Steve (AC because I've never registered on
Re:Next 50 ears is likely (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nope, you read that wrong.
Nobody is saying that life necessarily implies oxygen. They ARE saying that oxygen implies life, and that we might be able to easily detect oxygen.
They are not saying that non-oxygen life does not exist, only that it may be much harder to detect given the distances involved.
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Re: Next 50 ears is likely (Score:2, Funny)
This Brexit rhetoric has gone quite far enough, thank you.
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The stellar wind can strip hydrogen from water leaving oxygen behind. With enough water you can get enough oxygen to oxidize everything, leaving some to be detected in the atmosphere.
Re:Next 50 ears is likely (Score:4, Informative)
Citation please.
The OP's point is that, well, "Oxygen is by nature a very reactive element," meaning that a high concentration of atmospheric Oxygen is unstable. Unless there is some process generating Oxygen, it will eventually bind to other elements (i.e. oxidation).
Say you started off with a planet that had very high levels of Oxygen, for some reason. After, say, a billion years, virtually none of it would remain unbound from other elements. While it's true that some naturally occurring, non-living process (that I've so far not heard of) might be capable pumping out Oxygen, Oxygen is not going to persist without at least some type of generating (as in stripping from other elements) process in place.
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Unless there is some process generating Oxygen, it will eventually bind to other elements (i.e. oxidation).
i.e., Fire!
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e.g., Fire!
FTFY
Rust is not fire.
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Rust is not fire.
Both fire and rust are forms of oxidation
See also the geological history of oxygen [wikipedia.org]and also this [umich.edu]
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Correct.
The GP was suggesting that all oxidation is fire, which is not true.
Exciting but not Proof (Score:2)
While it's true that some naturally occurring, non-living process (that I've so far not heard of) might be capable pumping out Oxygen
That's the problem. I agree the discovery of oxygen in a planet's atmosphere makes that planet a very likely home of extraterrestrial life it is not conclusive proof because we really do not know what exotic minerals and natural processes may exist on that planet and, unlikely as it might be, some might produce free oxygen. So I would put the discovery of oxygen down as very exciting but not conclusive proof.
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Is 'not' a sentence?
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It's detectable in large quantities on Europa:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Next 50 ears is likely (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, this actually is an interesting example to consider, but it's not really relevant to the OP's point.
Europa's O2 exists for much the same reason that O3 exists in Earth's atmosphere: there is enough energy supplied (mostly solar) to facilitate the formation of O2 (on Europa) or O3 (on Earth), and this works because there aren't enough other atmospheric gasses to absorb that energy -- gasses that would inhibit O2 (on Europa) or O3 (on Earth) formation -- where that O2 or O3 is being formed.
The reason this isn't really relevant to the OP's point is that Europa only has O2 in its atmosphere because its atmosphere is so minimal as to allow negligible O2 formation. For all intents and purposes, Europa doesn't really have an atmosphere... it doesn't have an atmosphere detectable by using terrestrial spectroscopy, and certainly wouldn't be detectable as having an atmosphere if it were an exoplanet. That's why I included the qualifier, "non-negligible quantity" in a different post.
How about life from another planet? (Score:1)
I don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
I care (Score:1)
Why kill yourself? (Score:2)
There are a number of people who think if you are below 60 now you may well live forever at this point.
That may be a bit extreme but I don't think living to 200 is unlikely if you are anywhere below 50 and keep yourself healthy...
So if you are going to miss this in 200 years it pretty much means you did yourself in. Don't do that.
Re: Why kill yourself? (Score:2)
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The average upper ages of human past 100 should have increased in the past couple decades if that were true but it hasn't
Not sure why you would say that but that is not a all the case - we are not talking about natural changes leading to such a prolonged lifespan but instead drugs or procedures that literally roll back the biological clock. We'll not live past 100, but can can live up to 100 several times...
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There are valid reasons for preprogrammed cell death.
You can't rebuild the same dna over and over again without errors for one. by age 80 your cells have been replaced a few million times. Even DNA needs a fresh start on that. This is done by mixing two pieces of dna into one new strand.
The human mind while useful in it's ability to forget the older one gets the less plasticy your mind has for learning new and accepting new concepts. Very very few humans can learn and understand new ideas when they get
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Assuming "a few" to be "three", you seem to be implying that your cells are replaced about every fifteen minutes. Which sounds a bit too frequent (all new cells at the end of every coffee break (or commercial break on the tube)?)....
Can't you google (Score:2)
So tired of looking up the simplest things [sciencedaily.com] for morons.
Hopefully they have some kind of test for access to life prolonging technologies that rejects people like you, we don't need burger-flippers to live to 200.
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Pretty sure it's going to be possible to upload your mind into machines within the next few hundred years. But not during our lifetimes, I suppose.
Ya know, this seemed kinda cool to think about when I was younger and thought that storage/etc would keep getting cheaper/denser/better indefinitely, but I still can't afford to upload all my data (mostly a bandwidth limitation), let alone my whole brain. If I could afford to upload my whole brain, how could I maintain that cost too? How could society support the infrastructure to upload everybody's brains?
No, I suspect we'll have better luck making an artificial brain that is far more productive and useful
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There are a number of people who think if you are below 60 now you may well live forever at this point.
I'm only 30 so while I would like to believe that, the pessimist in me says that if we do, with my luck it won't be discovered until either just after I die, at the point where I'm too old for it to matter, or will just cost way too much to afford (although if you can live basically forever, you might be able to get decent financing terms on a centuries-long payment schedule)
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That sounds like good news to this mid-50s guy. OTOH, I hope my various aches and pains don't get worse in the next hundred or so years. :p
Modified "no" as in the Mars Trilogy (Score:5, Interesting)
I like how KS Robinson handled the question in the Mars Trilogy.
----SPOILERS----
This is one of the long-simmering questions of the trilogy of novels, so don't read further if you plan to read the books (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars).
In Mars Trilogy, life at the sub-cellular level on Mars and life in the universe at large is seen as almost certainly to exist, but so distant either on large or microscopic scales that humans will basically evolve so far that they can control space/time before we could find it.
Seriously, it's explained very well. I do not do KSR justice, but briefly it's like this...
Potential proto-life forms and such things get smaller and smaller...these are things that are classified and tested as methods of life evolving from inert material, and they find some bits of quasi-organic compounds in tectonically active sub-surface ice, but they can never completely prove that the substances viability to evolve into life is either due to contamination or not.
On the galaxy and universe scale, KSR takes a modified "So where are they" stance to *intelligent* life. It's like a possibility horizon that extends outward all the time from earth in all directions.
We would have heard from anyone close enough to visit in any sensible time and relay that info back to earth. Plus life-extention and quasi-immortality via mind-uploading are in thousand year timescales compared to 9^10 year time-scales for sending probes or visiting even with faster-than-light travel (which isn't yet invented in the books) considering the galaxy and universe is so incredibly vast.
Basically the answer is "We would have met them by now, but we'll never know for sure, given all we can imagine 'knowing' might mean in any context, limited by space-time."
The books have a small aside about a group that makes a quasi-generational ship to begin a trip to a new star, which will 'only' take 45 years, in a time when humans live to be 300 years and older due to technology that helps put it all to scale.
fictional story real science (Score:2)
Fiction researched as much or more than any theory presented in non-fiction...
Just b/c it is fiction doesn't mean it doesn't contain facts.
"Another"? (Score:3)
Waddaya mean, "another" planet? Where's it been discovered so far?
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Enough with the fake news. Let's keep Slashdot informative, truthful, and respectful. :)
Always Assuming... (Score:4, Insightful)
...(and it's a pretty big assumption) that human beings themselves survive for the next 200 years. And have good enough technology to reach other planets. Our descendants in the year 2217 (if any) may have their work cut out finding enough food and fighting off enemies who want to take their food.
As our numbers grow, and it becomes increasingly obvious that none of our fancifully so-called "leaders" have either the power or the intelligence to do anything to curb the growth, Homo Sapiens [sic] stands revealed as a species which throws up the occasional intelligent individual - but which cannot possibly be deemed intelligent as a whole.
Otherwise, how come no one is in charge? When did you last hear of a bunch of people who were faced by serious threats to their existence, and survived without any central leadership? Instead, we have bought into the "capitalist free market free enterprise democracy" fantasy, which essentially says that if everyone goes flat out in pursuit of his or her own selfish ends, the overall result will be the best of all possible worlds for everyone.
To be honest, you couldn't get away with that as a plot line in "Doctor Who".
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Our descendants in the year 2217 (if any) may have their work cut out finding enough food and fighting off enemies who want to take their food.
Our descendants should eat their enemies.
Both problems solved, by the great new Soylent product from the sea . . .
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At this point, I'm just hoping we have a sustainable off world colony by 2217...
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You watch too many dystopian movies.
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I can't decide if you're high, crazy, stupid or just trolling. Let's just unite under one Führer, that worked so well the last time. Because what we have is clearly an anarchist's dream where everyone does exactly what they want, no laws or regulations to hold us back. And the richest parts of the world that could support the most kids have women go crazy to have a little league team each. My guess is your sarcasm meter is so broken you'll think I'm serious.
Faulty assumptions yourself... (Score:2)
it's a pretty big assumption) that human beings themselves survive for the next 200 years.
That's not a big assumption at all. In fact YOU seem to be making a lot of assumptions about people and the world that just aren't so.
Will there continue to be wars? Yes. But certainly not world-ending affairs, that is just not possible at this point. As a civilization, we all know too much as it were, pretty much every continent could carry civilization forward beyond where we are now, if need be.
Our descendants i
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As our numbers grow, and it becomes increasingly obvious that none of our fancifully so-called "leaders" have either the power or the intelligence to do anything to curb the growth,
You must live under a rock.
The growth rate is declining since decades. Just a matter of a few more decades and the planet has a stable population.
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When was the last bunch of people that all died out, and weren't killed by other humans? Where 'bunch' is more than a thousand people?
Most of these examples [amazon.com] were under, or only slightly over, a thousand people, but this book was still awesome.
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How do you think every single human will die in the next 200 years? Who's going to hunt humans to extinction if we don't find aliens? A nuclear war might work, but even that is no guarantee (ending the comforts of modern civilization is different than no humans). Overpopulation, assuming it even happens, would just lead to a population crash as people die from disease and starvation.
An engineered plague might do it, though it would take some significant engineering to ensure that no natural resistance exists about billions of humans. It has the advantage of easy spread to non-combatants and rural dwellers.
I don't think nuclear war would do it, at least not without a huge increase in the number of nuclear armed states. Humans are resourceful and getting an extinction level event would require hitting improbable places like South America and Pacific islands.
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How do you think every single human will die in the next 200 years?
How about starvation? Or, more likely, starvation assisted by disease and murder - as people first fight for food and water, then hunt one another for food.
Many people nowadays, having lived in our civilization since birth, automatically assume that staying alive; staying alive and comfortable; and staying alive and comfortable without desperate efforts - is the default.
In the long-term perspective, it isn't.
Of course, if the gang in Washington get what they are currently pressing for, we will all die rathe
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How about starvation? Or, more likely, starvation assisted by disease and murder - as people first fight for food and water, then hunt one another for food.
In most countries 40% - 50% of all produced food is thrown away. So with better distribution the planet could double its population without producing a single grain of rice or wheat more.
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Few people think and plan for the future. They don't put their heads together and work out a sane plan together as one - realizing that they are all on the same planet!!
As I slowly age, I wonder how many people make decisions knowing /they/ will not be on the same planet and that the immediate convenience or inconvenience outweighs the long term /not their problem/
Poll already has an answer (Score:1)
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Correct me if I am wrong, but didnt we find pretty compelling evidence of bacteria on Mars? Doesn't that make everyone who voted "no" pretty much wrong?
You're wrong. :-) Actually there has been rather compelling evidence just not anything conclusive. Twenty years ago a meteorite of Martian origin [space.com] was found to have chemical and physical traces highly suggestive of life. However, no DNA or actual fossils were found. Similar inconclusive chemical results have been found by Mars landers as far back as the Viking probes [phys.org].
So, bottom line is: we still don't know. We have hints but we still don't have answers.
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no. (Score:2)
We may 'suspect' life, but unless it is intelligent and we can decode some kind of signal enough to prove it, then we would need to send a robot there to confirm it.
Given that the nearest plant is something like 150,000 years away with our current technology
http://earthsky.org/space/alph... [earthsky.org]
Any claim that we will prove the existence of alien life within the next 200 years is more then speculative, it would require much greater belief in that which is unproved then most religious people have.
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There could still be primitive life on Mars.
Technically, if we go to Mars there will be life there (us) to find. That seems like cheating, though.
Nope (Score:2)
Other: Will humans be around in 200 years? (Score:2)
Or, what humans are left, will they even have time to look at the stars with modern technology? The capacity? Who knows what will be left of humans in 200 years, they may well be clustering into what areas are left that aren't over 50 / 55 / 60c at night on the planet.
But will they consider *us* intelligent? (Score:2)
Beam me up, Scotty, there's *no* intelligent life here.
Not in 200 Years (Score:2)
I will say "No" on the assumption of rare earth model and lack of ability to detect such life. First off, life will be rare. Conditions for life will require goldilocks zone for water, chemical composition including water and appropriate minerals, tectonic plate movement to keep those minerals and water recycling and not getting fixes, magnetic field to maintain atmosphere, non-hostile local area filled with little radiation from other stars on geological timelines, and then the actual creation of life whic
We may get visited .. (Score:2)
I imagine that we're already under observation, and may get visited by little green men (or women) before we manage to leave our own Solar System for other planets. The idea that we're the most advanced civilization out there is laughable.
Fact free (Score:2)
Fact free science has arrived on /..
Predicting is very hard, especially when it concerns the future.
no proof, just like religion (Score:1)
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Invert the transition planet finding method? (Score:2)
However, if we are looking for incoming messages from another civilization, we should probably be looking in directions where Earth would transit the sun. If 'they' can easily (i.e. with a le
Mod parent up! Re:Invert planet finding method? (Score:2)
They've definitely been considering that idea! Check out this article [sciencealert.com]
The authors of the paper being discussed in the article are proposing exactly what you said. Focus our searching/listening for extraterrestrial life on the areas in the galaxy where we would be most visible to other observers if "they" are using the same "transit observation" techniques we're using.
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NASA Discovers Distant Planet Located Outside Fund (Score:2)
The Onion says it all: NASA Discovers Distant Planet Located Outside Funding Capabilities
http://www.theonion.com/articl... [theonion.com]
Never will you see photos of any of these planets nor will you know if they are habitable or harbor life. It is all just black dots in front of distant stars and press releases.
I think we'll find like in our solar system (Score:2)
AND on multiple planets or moons. Even if life only evolved on one, I bet there's a pretty high probability that some time over the last 4 billion years impacts ejected debris from the point of origin to another.
Finding life on another planet is very likely (Score:2)
Unfortunately, it is also very likely to be earth life we brought with us.
This is the reason probes are sterilized BTW.
Project Starshot (Score:2)
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
I hope so (Score:2)
So far, I've seen no sign of intelligent life in the universe. Including on this planet.
Other (Score:2)
We've already found it but don't know that we found it. Viking' Labeled Release surface experiment showed a biorhythm in the data, for instance. Not saying that's a confirmation but we already have tons of data that likely contains a bacterial signal. Intelligent life will probably have to wait until we can listen to some kind of tachyonic signal.
Act intelligent and they'll find us. (Score:2)
Not life as we know it... (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
Sort of (Score:2)
I'd bet we'll discover signs that seem to indicate the presence of life, but we'll never know for sure if we're seeing the results of some unusual non-living chemical process or actual life.
The only life I believe we can discover with certainty is life we can reach physically (if it turns out to be elsewhere in the Solar system) or if it's intelligent and at least as technologically advanced as we are (and near enough we can detect the signs of that, like intelligently modulated radio or something).
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I wouldn't be surprised if we discovered life on planets in this solar system granted it would most likely be microbial and probably have originated from earth whether mistakenly taken there by us or some other means.
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Or perhaps life on Earth came from Mars. It's ballistically easier.
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If gravitational waves move faster than light, we should be able to contact them now.
I think the LIGO data puts pretty strict bounds on the speed of gravitational waves - they are within a few percent of the speed of light, certainly not many times faster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Within a few percent of the speed of light is interesting. But even more interesting, and not stated is whether it is a few percent slower than light, or a few percent faster? I'll bet it is slower unless I hear otherwise.
The measurements don't give that detail. Of course all the theoretical underpinnings are based on "c" beinging the max speed in the universe, so I would not be one to take that bet, but I don't think there is as of yet any measurements that rule it out - it could be a tiny bit faster or slower than "c". My bet is that it is exactly "c" and that the graviton is a massless force carrier.
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If we could build a Dyson sphere that actually doesn't collapse, then we would not have to worry at all about aliens taking our jobs. Especially not if said Dyson sphere contained The Sun and harnessed all of it's energy output.
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You'd NEED all the energy output from the sun to power a vacuum cleaner that huge!
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The ship from Spaceballs can't possibly have contained a star, after all it crashes quite uneventfully on a planet at the end, I expect the star within would have had world-ending consequences if it crashed like that; QED, no star! Nice tongue-in-cheek reference though!
Re:NEVER (Score:5, Funny)
It's a Donaldson sphere. A mega structure constructed around the Earth. To keep aliens out. And terrorists. And think of the children. We'll make the aliens pay for it.
Left wing global elitists will complain that it will also keep sunlight from ever reaching the earth. But they can be safely dismissed as fake news. Alarmists just like all the chicken little scientists claiming "the sky is warming! the sky is warming!". These are mere scientists. You can't believe what they say. If the Donaldson sphere makes the earth completely dark, we can just burn more fossil fuel and "clean" coal forever and ever! Both are in unlimited supply and easy to find and have no consequences if we burn them. Plus those silly people who thought solar power was the answer will be laughed at. What are they going to do with their solar farms and batteries when our Dear Leader prevents sunlight from reaching the earth?
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It's something like brainstorming. It's fun, it's interesting, and it might conceivably turn up some useful ideas.
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Humans could be extinct in less than 200 years.
This message brought to you be SMOD, the Sweet Meteor of Death. Established provider of Extinction-Level Events since the Pre-Cambrian. . .
Remember, if you want a species wiped out, call SMOD. 1-800-SCREAMING DEATH
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were trying to observe a black hole, trying to keep a safe distance, how would you know whether you had crossed the event horizon? It's not like there is a sign posted at the boundary.
In a stack of dominoes falling, if the first three dominoes had fallen, wouldn't there still, at that moment, be a lot of dominoes left standing. Couldn't one argue that there really isn't any danger and it's all overblown that all the dominoes will fall.
Oh, and I agree. I'm old enough to believe that it is highly likely that if there are humans left in 200 years, they will be vastly fewer in number and living in primitive conditions. Technology is extremely brittle. We fool ourselves to think it is not. If the power grid were down for two weeks, society would devolve into barbarian survival fighting. Cars out of fuel. No more fuel deliveries. No power to pump the fuel to even refuel the trucks or run refineries. Grocery stores stripped bare within one week. I don't mean to be a pessimist. Just a realist. The glass isn't half empty. (Nor half full.) The glass is simply too large -- or rather, it is what it is. Too large a population wanting too much energy, generating too much pollution for the balloon to keep inflating forever. It is now beyond obvious that individual greed will prevent humans from doing anything about this because it is not profitable to a few individuals. Human nature. People have difficulty accepting that things could get worse. Much worse. But bad things have happened in the past. The middle ages. The holocaust. And bad things can happen again. And on a much larger and irreversible scale. Wishful thinking all you want to. That doesn't make it so.
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You have no idea.
I live in Latin America, and living standards in my country are much lower than in the US, but comparable.
We may probably consume like one third, or one quarter the energy you guys do. In some parts of Asia, they may consume like 1/10 or 1/20 of what you do.
They can live without power grid, without internet, without fuel and all that stuff. They do it right now. What you describe would be just business as usual for them.
We can prevail as a civilization with probably 1/10, or 1/100 the resou
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No worries, most of Asia has better internet connections than the USA, and the cellular networks are probably 5 to 10 times faster than in Germany.
They have only a lower GPD because the price level is lower. GPD is an idiotic measure to figure how "rich" a country is or how high the standard of living is.
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There is a book called "Dies the fire" by SM Stirling that is basically about such a situation. It follows the regression of society into a mix of feudal and cannibalistic future after an event that is basically a shift in the rules of physics and electricity and guns don't work any more. The die off is fast and violent and the mix of societies afterwards is intriguing. It'll make you think about how fragile what we have today is. Another interesting work that is less science fiction and actually not on
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Technology is extremely brittle.
And yet it has never gone backwards.
If the power grid were down for two weeks, society would devolve into barbarian survival fighting.
In some of the cities, perhaps. People will riot over anything. But there are a lot of "preppers" out there who would take 2 weeks just to stop patting themselves on the back. Power would be restored and the military would restore order.
large a population wanting too much energy, generating too much pollution for the balloon to keep inflating forever
Pollution in the US has fallen dramatically in my lifetime. The same will eventually happen in China and India as they become fully industrialized; heck, there's already some movement in China.
. It is now beyond obvious that individual greed will prevent humans from doing anything about this because it is not profitable to a few individuals
Human nature hasn't changed ever, but here
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The event horizon is the border behind nothing can escape the black hole. So: no, you would not realize that you just have passed it. The gravitational stress there is much much much to low.
To experience what you refer to, you to be much much closer to the black hole, depending on its size/mass of course.
Re: confirmation needs samples - limited to 1 plan (Score:2)
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I think you miss AC's point. Oxygen on a planet would certainly be a SIGN of life, but it wouldn't be a CONFIRMATION of life. We might have very strong suspicion of life somewhere, but we won't actually know for sure.
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I heard they found iron on Mars, think they'll find a car?
We already know of a few Rovers up there.