A tour of your solar system at the speed of light.

[Mudhammam]

If I had the technology to visit beings in other solar systems, I certainly would not waste my time visiting earth.

If you had never seen earth before or if you had left it you mean you would never return?

[Pyrrho]

If I had the technology to visit beings in other solar systems, I certainly would not waste my time visiting earth.

If you had never seen earth before or if you had left it you mean you would never return?

I was thinking of it from the perspective of someone in another solar system. Before getting here, they (if they existed) could see some of our radio/TV transmissions, and know that it isn't worthwhile to make the trip. And although I have no delusions in thinking I will ever leave the solar system, if I were to do so, I would certainly not return.

That probably sounds wrong for how my life is. I am quite happy in my little bit of where I am, and do not long for escape. But it is right for my opinion of the world as a whole. Think of all of the batshit crazy beliefs that people have, and then tell me that you, as an alien with such great technology that you can visit other solar systems, that this one is the one you would visit. One with no life at all would be better.

[Mudhammam]

If you had never seen earth before or if you had left it you mean you would never return?

I was thinking of it from the perspective of someone in another solar system. Before getting here, they (if they existed) could see some of our radio/TV transmissions, and know that it isn't worthwhile to make the trip. And although I have no delusions in thinking I will ever leave the solar system, if I were to do so, I would certainly not return.

That probably sounds wrong for how my life is. I am quite happy in my little bit of where I am, and do not long for escape. But it is right for my opinion of the world as a whole. Think of all of the batshit crazy beliefs that people have, and then tell me that you, as an alien with such great technology that you can visit other solar systems, that this one is the one you would visit. One with no life at all would be better.

They would miss so much of earth's beauty that mankind hasn't yet completely destroyed though...

[Anomalocaris]

It is a matter of perspective. I am struck by how far apart things are. The distances in space are almost unimaginable.

It is one of the reasons there is little chance that beings from one solar system will ever visit beings from another one, unless the two solar systems collide.

It depends on how long-lived the traveling beings are and their motivations. The times involved in the evolution of solar systems and any resultant life forms is what makes the meeting unlikely. One would likely be so far evolved over the other, there would be no significant commonality at all. No reason to meet.

So long as life forms obey as well as understand the same set of physical laws, they will have highly significant commonalities. They have potential to benefit from meeting if only to further their understanding of these laws and benefit from the technology and the power such additional understanding confers.

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If you had never seen earth before or if you had left it you mean you would never return?

I was thinking of it from the perspective of someone in another solar system. Before getting here, they (if they existed) could see some of our radio/TV transmissions, and know that it isn't worthwhile to make the trip. And although I have no delusions in thinking I will ever leave the solar system, if I were to do so, I would certainly not return.

That probably sounds wrong for how my life is. I am quite happy in my little bit of where I am, and do not long for escape. But it is right for my opinion of the world as a whole. Think of all of the batshit crazy beliefs that people have, and then tell me that you, as an alien with such great technology that you can visit other solar systems, that this one is the one you would visit. One with no life at all would be better.

To hasten your departure and ensure you will never return alone could well be worth the effort and cost of developing the science and technology of interstellar travel.

---

It depends on how long-lived the traveling beings are and their motivations. The times involved in the evolution of solar systems and any resultant life forms is what makes the meeting unlikely. One would likely be so far evolved over the other, there would be no significant commonality at all. No reason to meet.

If I had the technology to visit beings in other solar systems, I certainly would not waste my time visiting earth.

Earth thanks you.

[vorlon13]

There remains some non-human related reasons to visit our solar system;

Asimov in his foundation novels posited the rings of Saturn might be especially unusual. We may not know for sure for a very long time.

Total solar eclipses as seen from the earth's surface are TRULY spectacular. The odds of very many comfortable planets having the combination of close proximity to a reasonably active G2 star and a huge, but distant, satellite aligned properly in orbit and inclination, etc. are VERY VERY tiny indeed.

The solar system contains 2 planets, Jupiter and Uranus, that are scaled to each other; mass of the planets and their 4 largest satellites and their orbits. It's not known if it's a coincidence, of it there is some subtlety in planet formation that 'prefers' the similarities.

Rainbows, so far, appear unique to earth. (Venus is too screwed up atmosphere wise, and the great distances from the sun takes the 'punch' out of rainbows on the gas giants. We're 3 billion years too late to see rainbows on Mars.

We occasionally get to see a spectacular naked eye comet from the earth's surface, our proximity to the sun makes them bright if they are large and/or close to the earth

Our moon is a weird goomer too. For it's size relative to it's planet (earth) it is enormous. It is also unusually distant for such a big one. It is so far out, in fact, that the sun's gravity impinging upon it is ~twice what earth can do. No other sizable moon in the solar system can make that claim.

The tides in earth's oceans are unusual too. The strengthening and weakening of the tides we see at the beach depending on the angles between where the sun and the moon are is a unique phenomenon to earth. You need deep oceans, proximity to a star (our sun in this case) and that weirdly huge satellite we have to make tides with the spring and neap effects.



For aliens into unusual planetary characteristics, our solar system is quite interesting. We are starting to see some other planetary systems now, and they have characteristics we might find 'weird' but curiously, many of those characteristics; planets of all sizes very very close to their stars, or planets in resonance with each other, for instance, turn out to be not rare.

[AFTT47]

It depends on how long-lived the traveling beings are and their motivations. The times involved in the evolution of solar systems and any resultant life forms is what makes the meeting unlikely. One would likely be so far evolved over the other, there would be no significant commonality at all. No reason to meet.

So long as life forms obey as well as understand the same set of physical laws, they will have highly significant commonalities. They have potential to benefit from meeting if only to further their understanding of these laws and benefit from the technology and the power such additional understanding confers.

Unlike what you see in countless science fiction TV shows and movies, it is unlikely in the extreme that any two intelligent civilizations will be anywhere close to each other as far as development goes. If they meet, I have a hard time seeing how the more-developed civilization is going to benefit in any way and how the less-developed civilization is going to avoid being badly damaged.

[Anomalocaris]

Thank you for you condescension

I didn't say encounter will be on equal terms. Nevertheless, unlike how it may seem in the small milieu your narrow mind can conceive, the things about technology and behavior that can be learned is so vast that even very advanced civilizations are unlikely to have been able to fully enumerate and understand the implications of all possible technologies and behaviors that could have been facilitated along branches of trajectories of progress not taken before the current point it occupies, so it is not beyond reason to suppose even very advanced civilizations can learn a thing or two through contact with comparatively primitive cultures that would useful to the advanced culture. This does not mean the advanced culture won't have reason to crush the primitive culture like insects in many cases, But it does suggest experienced advanced cultures may in many cases see merit in also observing and interacting with the primitive cultures just as we observe and interact with ants and learn useful things from the exercise.

[Pyrrho]

I was thinking of it from the perspective of someone in another solar system. Before getting here, they (if they existed) could see some of our radio/TV transmissions, and know that it isn't worthwhile to make the trip. And although I have no delusions in thinking I will ever leave the solar system, if I were to do so, I would certainly not return.

That probably sounds wrong for how my life is. I am quite happy in my little bit of where I am, and do not long for escape. But it is right for my opinion of the world as a whole. Think of all of the batshit crazy beliefs that people have, and then tell me that you, as an alien with such great technology that you can visit other solar systems, that this one is the one you would visit. One with no life at all would be better.

They would miss so much of earth's beauty that mankind hasn't yet completely destroyed though...

Yes, but there is undoubtedly beauty to be found in many solar systems. And in solar systems without life, they would not have to deal with a species that, for the most part, believes primitive superstitious nonsense.

Think about how humans would likely react to an alien species visiting us. There would be all kinds of crazy things that people would do. Would you want to visit a place where you would get the kind of reception that one would get from humans? If not, then you wouldn't choose to visit this solar system either. Or, at least, you would want to avoid visiting earth. If you wanted to watch people squirm from afar, you could set up a base on Mars. And maybe send the Mars probes back to earth, reprogramed to send their signals to Mars instead of to the earth. But that is something that would not interest me; I would rather not torture primitive beings if it isn't necessary to do so, so if the aliens resembled me, they would just go someplace else and not bother with interacting with humans at all.