Is there another life form in the universe, what are some theories on this topic and how would our understanding of another life form help us better understand the universe?

Introduction:
I chose this topic because I have always found human beings very fascinating and the thought of other life forms in this universe was very intriguing. Even though there is no proof of a life form, I thought even researching theories would help me gain a better understanding of some possibilities.

Is there another life form?
There is no concrete evidence that there is another life form out there, although using data from the Kepler space telescope, it is estimated that there could be millions of potentially habitable planets just in our galaxy and it is predicted that there are trillions of planets in our universe. Although we will never be able to contact life forms in other galactic neighborhoods because the universe is so big and constantly expanding, it would take billions of years to reach these places. With generation spaceships that could sustain a population for around one thousand years, we could colonize the galaxy in about 2 million years, and since other life forms have possibly had a lot more time than us, how come we have not encountered any? This is called the Fermi Paradox, while there is no direct answer, there are many theories.

What are some theories on the subject?

Lack of communication:
There are many theories about other life forms and why we have not discovered them to this day. There might have been many alien empires with developed technology for millions of years before we discovered communication with technology over great distances which has only been around for about a century. It is possible that there are ruins of another life form far away and a species intelligent enough to travel to space could travel to planets nearby and eventually die off, never meeting another intelligent species. Since our universe is so big and continues to expand, galactic civilizations may never meet. It is also possible that our communication forms do not work to communicate to alien life forms so even if there were other intelligent life forms in our galaxy, they would not be able to detect us.

There is also the theory of a type three civilization:
This would be a very technologically advanced civilization. Just as we use earth sources to make money and create different things with them, a possibly highly intelligent alien life form could have the same philosophy, one day encountering them as they destroy the earth for the water and/or other resources. Although it would be more efficient for the intelligent alien life form to create a self-replicating space probe created from nano-machines which operate on a molecular level extremely fast and deadly, giving the machine four instructions: find a planet with life, disassemble everything on this planet into component parts, use these resources to build new space probs and repeat.

A theory/concept (the Matrioshka Brain):
A huge structure around a star, a computer so advanced that a species could upload their consciousness and exist in a simulated universe. In this universe, potentially one could experience an eternity of pure ecstasies without ever being bored or sad, a perfect life. If around a red dwarf, the computer could be powered for up to ten trillion years. In this case, the life form or the consciousness of itself in this perfect universe would be too occupied with a perfect life there would be no urge to travel into space and explore. Although we do not know where the borders of technology are and if this is even possible since it is all very theoretical.

Civilizations in the Milky Way (our galaxy):
There are many planets and stars, just in the Milky Way! About 20 billion sunlike stars are in the Milky Way. It is estimated that about 1/5 of these have an earth-sized planet in their habitable zone. Nasa estimates that about 1/ 2 of the sun-like stars could potentially have a habitable planet orbiting. If only 0.1% of the earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of a sun-like star contained life forms, there would be one million planets with life in the Milky Way. If even one of these planets contained a super civilization able to travel space over the past many years, what would that look like?
Civilization #1 would be able to access all the energy available on its planet, compared to earth which only uses about 0.73% of its energy. Civilization #2 would harness all the energy of its home star. Concepts like the Dyson Sphere, a giant complex surrounding the sun, would be conceivable. Civilization #3 could control its whole galaxy and energy. A civilization such as this one would be extremely advanced to us.

The Filter Theory:
A filter means a barrier that is hard to overcome by life, coming in various danger levels. It is possible that we have passed all the great filters by now and maybe the process of complex life development is harder than we might think and the process of allowing life to begin has not been completely figured out yet and conditions for this to happen could be extremely complicated. It is possible life forms were not a possibility in the past because the universe was hostile and only now cooling down, making us possibly very unique and one of the first civilizations in the universe. It is possible great filters are ahead of us too, and our earth will die quicker than expected.

How would our understanding of other life forms help us better understand the universe?
Our understanding of these life forms could help us understand how life forms on other planets live and how the rest of the life forms could look like. When discovering another life form, based on how alike or not alike we are compared to the life form, we can predict how the rest of the universe’s life forms are. For example, discovering another life form similar to humans could lead us to predict there are many other variations of humans in this universe while discovering another life form completely different from humans could lead us to predict the type of life on planets varies a lot. We could also find out if there is a place in the universe that would be suitable for the existence of humans if similar species existed somewhere else in the universe. If we were ever able to understand life forms it can help us better understand under what conditions life can exist, confirm our scientific theories, or completely make us question what we know about science and the necessary condition for life. Based on if we would be able to communicate, we could discover so much more about the universe by combining the knowledge about the universe from different life forms together. Overall, understanding other life forms and encountering other life forms would be remarkably interesting although highly unlikely.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, this project has taught me a lot. I have started to question the existence of other life forms and doing all this space research has helped me realize how fascinating our existence is. I believe there is another life form out there considering the number of planets in our universe. These ideas are just theories, and we will never know for sure all the other life forms there are, although I am excited to see what new astronomical discoveries humans make next.

A video:

 

Resources:

Kurzgesagt. “The Fermi Paradox II – Solutions and Ideas – Where Are All The Aliens?” YouTube, YouTube, 4 June 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fQkVqno-uI&t=1s.