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Is there life in outer space?
Question Date: 2008-04-13
Answer 1:

We're actively looking, but we have not found life yet. People have thought they saw signs of life in rocks from Mars (which landed on Earth as meteorites), clouds of interstellar gases, and planetary atmospheres. But none of these has panned out yet. On the other hand, the universe is such a huge place, it's hard to believe there isn't life out there somewhere.


Answer 2:

No-one yet knows for sure if there is life elsewhere in the universe. But if we assume that our solar system doesn't have anything too special about it (it doesn't seem to be very special), and our planets are regularly formed (they seem to be pretty regular as well), then a small fraction of stars out there can have solar systems not too different from ours; and with trillions of stars our there, there are probably lots planets that aren't too different from ours and can support life. Whether or not we will ever get to see them, is a whole other question.



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