Would life being found elsewhere in the Solar System

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necessarily suggest that it is common throughout the universe?

Maybe our Solar System just has the right ingredients for life.

Carl Sagan said finding life elsewhere than earth would instantly change life "from a miracle to a statistic".

Earth is in the sweet spot where water can exist as a liquid (among other factors). And every other body in the solar system is so bad for life (as we know it) that if life were found elsewhere within our own solar system then that would tend to mean that life is just "a statistic" because it would mean that life can started in worse conditions than we thought ergo it might be more common throughout the Universe than we thought. Or thats the short answer.

The right conditions for life dont extend beyond earth within in our own solar system. Or that was the thinking.



All hope is not lost yet. The SURFACE of Venus is the most gawdawful place. But the high atmosphere is oddly earthlike in temperature. Might have life floating upon the planet's thick atmosphere. Saturn's moon Titan is "so different from Earth that the differences cancel each other out so that it's oddly Earth-like".

In our solar system? Slim chance.

Elsewhere in the observable universe? Highly probable. Although we will never learn of it, most likely. But we know that there are many stars with planets located in "sweet spot" zones where liquid water can exist. Mind you, this is only one of requirements, there are others as important ones. The star must be relatively "calm", it cannot emit too much of life-destroying radiation, the planet needs to have active, big enough core to have magnetosphere (so solar wind won't strip surface from atmosphere) and so on.

Still, considering how vast universe is, probability gives us a near confidence that life, in some form, has existed, exists or will exist elsewhere, too.

If life was found elsewhere in the solar system, it would be in a place that is unlike the surface of the Earth. So we would then know of 2 kinds of environment that can definitely support life, instead of just 1. This would double the possibilities for life elsewhere, at least. More if it's on a common kind of astronomical body, such as large moons of gas giant planets. And if there are 2 possible kinds of environment, why not 3, or 4?

If life were found elsewhere, I'm not sure it would be as Earth shaking as I have always thought.

Firstly; the naysayers would be decrying the event because the life discovered was not as intelligent as Humans. (Which Humans - not specified)

Secondly; I'm not sure we are capable of recognizing intelligence if the subjects response is not in the Queen's English, and also, I believe most people fully expect intelligent communication to be audible. We expect intelligence to look like us - in every way.

But my cat doesn't! An observer would probably deduce that she was deaf, since she totally ignores everything I say, but let me pop the top of a can of catfood and she comes running. Her hearing is fine, the problem lies elsewhere.

At first, I thought perhaps she ignored my words because she had been exposed to all the Political speeches of the last election and realized words are not worth much. But then I noticed she very much wanted to communicate with me - since we are the only people in the apartment (Yes, she is a people!) we really NEED to communicate.

But her language is not audible, it is visual and physical - a kind of sign language. I have had many dogs and cats in the past, and if I had been asked, I would have said "You bet they communicate with me", especially the dogs, but THIS CAT has opened a whole new universe of communication (possibly because we are serving a life sentence in solitary together ). But it has made me think about communicating with aliens, because I would expect any off-world alien to be far more alien than my little alien. And we would probably decide they were deaf (and mute) and not pursue their intelligence.

Besides; we have proven we cannot share the Earth, and if we were not tethered to the Earth by our own ignorance, We Would Not Share The Universe.

hello, life exists for real probably elsewhere not longly out of our solar system but galaxy itself until the boundaries of the unknown of the universe. More years and decades pass, more exoplanets have been found, as much as similar to the earth more than we could even imagine even if they are bigger twice or more in comparison with our planet.

Scientists are clear; we have to expect a first contact soon, maybe they are right or maybe they are too much positive, but a response from someone or "something" won't last to come yet.

Honestly for me, the idea to have a collection of brothers among the stars that wonder about me and us in general, do not surprise and fear me niether. Life presence is normal and it is the expression of a more unrevealed and misterious great design hidden behind the apparences... the universe it has not been made only for us, otherwise it would be smaller i think.

According to the Drake equation the P (earth = only intelligent life universe) < P (Intelligent life existing elsewhere)
The order of magnitude is billions to one that intelligent life can only arise once in the universe.

About the only thing that could happen is that conditions in the universe to allow intelligent life to arise happened relatively recently (in the last few billion years) which is about the same age as our solar system. In that case all other intelligent life is still at the planetary level which explains why the universe we see is empty.

However we have no evidence to prove either scenario yet.