Really...so anyone have a feeling about UFO's?

[levdrakon]

@cmyk

The distance is limiting from the perspective of lifeforms.

Of course, advanced species may have cracked the whole death problem, but 4 LYs works out to over 24 trillion miles. Just to the nearest star. Our current best propulsion tech can barely reach a fraction of 1% of the speed of light. It would take several thousands of years to get there unless we developed radical propulsion systems that are only sketchy, theoretical musings now (if at all possible, let alone practical).

Either way, here’s an interesting read on NASA’s site about some pie-in-the-sky thinking in this regard.

It’s only limiting if you want to go there and back in a human lifetime. Once/if humanity learns to live in space, then even at the slow pace of migration, you still get a galaxy filled with life in a matter of millions of years, which isn’t long in the grand scheme of things.

[Mijin]

@Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker

Do you mean that across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours could this moment be watching us?

Yeah, but with pitying, rather than envious, eyes.

(actually, I was imagining them being closer than that, “cloaked” or with probes too small or otherwise impossible for us to detect)