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Robert Walker

Well the chance that they come out right now is tiny. Because those are habitats that have been around for billions of years. The chance they reached technology at the same time as us is surely miniscule. They could as easily come out a billion years ago or a billion years from now. So chance of them emerging in this century is surely less than a million to one.

So since they aren't here yet, chances are either they are very slow at evolving and will come out a few billion years into the future, or there is something that keeps them tied to their habitat whatever it is.

I think chance of life in lava is tiny but maybe not impossible. There are some chemicals that are stable at those temperatures, involving silicon chains, but there are no signs of lifeforms in our lava flows, that we can see. If there is any possibility of silicon life in lava flows, then the surface of Venus could be an ideal place to look for it also.

One place where there could be advanced life in our solar system, and not discovered yet, is Europa's ocean. It is thought to have enough oxygen in its oceans to support a small ecosystem, which could possibly even support quite large creatures like fish. If so, well, then it could have intelligent creatures also, if you can get as far as fish, why not fish with high levels of intelligence? If so they could be civilized, no reason why not, if they are intelligent. But probably don't have much by way of technology because it would be hard to work with fire in an ocean, and without fire, it would be hard to develop technology like ours.

If so then it might be the other way around that at some point in the future our rovers suddenly appear in their ocean. Would be a huge surprise to them, in an ice covered world, no way to see outside of it (unless it has geysers, but they also would probably be impossible for them to peer out of without technology) as they would probably be completely unaware that the rest of the universe exists at all.

About the Author

Robert Walker

Robert Walker

Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.
Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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Top Writer2017, 2016, and 2015
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