DON'T DO IT!

[deadline]

[#1Townie]

Well too late.

[I`m Batman]

I was done by Milky Way Galaxy.

[bulldog]

Seriously though this stuff really amazes me to see how tiny we really are. I have no doubt there has to be intelligent life out there somewhere!

[JonnyD]

Seriously though this stuff really amazes me to see how tiny we really are. I have no doubt there has to be intelligent life out there somewhere!

As my favorite comic strip put it: "Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." - Bill Watterson (Calvin)

[dirkterrell]

Seriously though this stuff really amazes me to see how tiny we really are. I have no doubt there has to be intelligent life out there somewhere!

And we're discovering planets left and right these days. The Kepler satellite detects the drop in brightness as a planet goes in front of (i.e. "transits") its host star (like Venus did last June). I was on a team that made such a discovery last year. Recently, a colleague and I have found another planet not by the transit method, but by a new method we developed that measures its influence on another transiting planet. The gory details are here for those who are interested. We found several more and will probably have found a couple dozen before the year is out. Planets are turning out to be pretty common, so I share your optimism on the possibility that we are not alone in this vast cosmos.

[#1Townie]

I wonder what other planets have for sport bikes. I bet there is some cool shit out there.

[mdub]

that was all cool...til you put jesus overlooking the universe...really WTF!!!

[rforsythe]

Planets are turning out to be pretty common

Was there really a lot of doubt in that area? I was always of the thought that people (of science) generally accepted there were an ass load of planets out there (we have several right here in our own sun's orbit), but that ones capable of (and possibly actually) supporting our theoretical parameters of life were the rare gems. Of course life as we know it to be is turning out to exist in some amazingly extreme places and chemistries, so it's even possible that "life" exists on planets that would be instantly lethal to humans and we just don't know how to quantify that yet.

that was all cool...til you put jesus overlooking the universe...really WTF!!!

Drink some coffee and come back to the punchline, please.

[mdub]

Was there really a lot of doubt in that area? I was always of the thought that people (of science) generally accepted there were an ass load of planets out there (we have several right here in our own sun's orbit), but that ones capable of (and possibly actually) supporting our theoretical parameters of life were the rare gems. Of course life as we know it to be is turning out to exist in some amazingly extreme places and chemistries, so it's even possible that "life" exists on planets that would be instantly lethal to humans and we just don't know how to quantify that yet.



Drink some coffee and come back to the punchline, please.

I'm a coffee snob. I drink about 3 cups in the morning. I stick to my opinion.

[dirkterrell]

Was there really a lot of doubt in that area? I was always of the thought that people (of science) generally accepted there were an ass load of planets out there (we have several right here in our own sun's orbit), but that ones capable of (and possibly actually) supporting our theoretical parameters of life were the rare gems.

There were arguments on both sides. The fact that we are in a somewhat unusual system with a single star, when most stellar systems are binary or higher multiples, made it easier to argue that planet formation might also be more rare. In the last twenty years or so it's become clear from both theoretical and, more importantly, observational studies that planets should be pretty common, even in multiple star systems. Ten years ago, I made the argument that there were good reasons to suspect that close binaries would be a great place to look for planets but there was very strong opposition to that idea. Now we are finding lots of them.

Now the argument is whether planets suitable to the formation of life are common and Kepler was designed with that specific question in mind. My gut feeling is that such planets will turn out to be relatively common. We are right on the threshold of observing technology that will enable us to detect life on such planets. I'd bet good money that such a discovery will be made in the next decade.

[#1Townie]

There were arguments on both sides. The fact that we are in a somewhat unusual system with a single star, when most stellar systems are binary or higher multiples, made it easier to argue that planet formation might also be more rare. In the last twenty years or so it's become clear from both theoretical and, more importantly, observational studies that planets should be pretty common, even in multiple star systems. Ten years ago, I made the argument that there were good reasons to suspect that close binaries would be a great place to look for planets but there was very strong opposition to that idea. Now we are finding lots of them.

Now the argument is whether planets suitable to the formation of life are common and Kepler was designed with that specific question in mind. My gut feeling is that such planets will turn out to be relatively common. We are right on the threshold of observing technology that will enable us to detect life on such planets. I'd bet good money that such a discovery will be made in the next decade.

You know man I have really enjoyed your posts on these topics. Keep going.

[dirkterrell]

You know man I have really enjoyed your posts on these topics. Keep going.

Hey, somebody is listening. Glad you enjoy the topic. We astronomers have it easy in that regard. The general public really enjoys hearing about astronomy stuff, as opposed to things like particle physics.

[Grim2.0]

There were arguments on both sides. The fact that we are in a somewhat unusual system with a single star, when most stellar systems are binary or higher multiples, made it easier to argue that planet formation might also be more rare. In the last twenty years or so it's become clear from both theoretical and, more importantly, observational studies that planets should be pretty common, even in multiple star systems. Ten years ago, I made the argument that there were good reasons to suspect that close binaries would be a great place to look for planets but there was very strong opposition to that idea. Now we are finding lots of them.

Now the argument is whether planets suitable to the formation of life are common and Kepler was designed with that specific question in mind. My gut feeling is that such planets will turn out to be relatively common. We are right on the threshold of observing technology that will enable us to detect life on such planets. I'd bet good money that such a discovery will be made in the next decade.

So what would you say the time frame would be (if ever) on discovering an advanced civilization such as earth? I know this is a very very broad question but I don't know many people who could even begin to answer this questions with a knowledgeable response.

[dirkterrell]

So what would you say the time frame would be (if ever) on discovering an advanced civilization such as earth? I know this is a very very broad question but I don't know many people who could even begin to answer this questions with a knowledgeable response.

That is another term up in the Drake equation and much more uncertain. There are certainly people looking for signs of such civilizations, like SETI. We might detect such a signal tomorrow, or never. A few years back, I did some coding for the SETI@Home project and if you have spare CPU cycles, you might be interested in participating.

[#1Townie]

Hey, somebody is listening. Glad you enjoy the topic. We astronomers have it easy in that regard. The general public really enjoys hearing about astronomy stuff, as opposed to things like particle physics.

Yeah I think most people enjoy looking at the stars. I don't even know what particle physics are. Lol

[mdub]

So what would you say the time frame would be (if ever) on discovering an advanced civilization such as earth? I know this is a very very broad question but I don't know many people who could even begin to answer this questions with a knowledgeable response.

Earth being advance. I dis-agree. If there are any discoveries it would be lifeforms way advance than us. And more likely they would prolly turn us into slaves or food.

[Grim2.0]

Earth being advance. I dis-agree. If there are any discoveries it would be lifeforms way advance than us. And more likely they would prolly turn us into slaves or food.

Where is your research to back this up?

What makes you think there is not another planet not within our reach (yet) that has the same or less technology that we do? Trying to do the same thing as us?

[mdub]

Where is your research to back this up?

What makes you think there is not another planet not within our reach (yet) that has the same or less technology that we do? Trying to do the same thing as us?

Stephen Hawking Update: "Alien Contact Not a Wise Idea" (A Weekend Feature)

Stephen Hawking proclaims in a new television upcoming Discovery Channel documentary series, that in a universe with 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars, it is unlikely that earth is the only place where life has evolved.
"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said, according to Great Britain's The Sunday Times. "The real challenge is working out what aliens might actually be like."


"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet," Hawking said. "I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach."

In his famous lecture on Life in the Universe, Stephen Hawking asks: "What are the chances that we will encounter some alien form of life, as we explore the galaxy?"
If the argument about the time scale for the appearance of life on Earth is correct, Hawking says "there ought to be many other stars, whose planets have life on them. Some of these stellar systems could have formed 5 billion years before the Earth. So why is the galaxy not crawling with self-designing mechanical or biological life forms?"
Why hasn't the Earth been visited, and even colonized? Hawking asks. "I discount suggestions that UFO's contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant."
Hawking continues: "What is the explanation of why we have not been visited? One possibility is that the argument, about the appearance of life on Earth, is wrong. Maybe the probability of life spontaneously appearing is so low, that Earth is the only planet in the galaxy, or in the observable universe, in which it happened. Another possibility is that there was a reasonable probability of forming self reproducing systems, like cells, but that most of these forms of life did not evolve intelligence."
We are used to thinking of intelligent life, as an inevitable consequence of evolution, Hawking emphasized, but it is more likely that evolution is a random process, with intelligence as only one of a large number of possible outcomes.
Intelligence, Hawking believes contrary to our human-centric existece, may not have any long-term survival value. In comparison the microbial world, will live on, even if all other life on Earth is wiped out by our actions. Hawking's main insight is that intelligence was an unlikely development for life on Earth, from the chronology of evolution: "It took a very long time, two and a half billion years, to go from single cells to multi-cell beings, which are a necessary precursor to intelligence. This is a good fraction of the total time available, before the Sun blows up. So it would be consistent with the hypothesis, that the probability for life to develop intelligence, is low. In this case, we might expect to find many other life forms in the galaxy, but we are unlikely to find intelligent life."
Another possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form, and to evolve to intelligent beings, but at some point in their technological development "the system becomes unstable, and the intelligent life destroys itself. This would be a very pessimistic conclusion. I very much hope it isn't true."
Hawkling prefers another possibility: that there are other forms of intelligent life out there, but that we have been overlooked. If we should pick up signals from alien civilizations, Hawking warns,"we should have be wary of answering back, until we have evolved" a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilization, at our present stage,' Hawking says "might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don't think they were better off for it."
Posted by Casey Kazan.

[rforsythe]

Where is your research to back this up?

What makes you think there is not another planet not within our reach (yet) that has the same or less technology that we do? Trying to do the same thing as us?

Then we turn them into slaves or food. It's the human way!

Soylent Green is ... aliens!

[mdub]

Wednesday is soylent orange

[Darth Do'Urden]

I'll speak up for the minority that believes that this earth is truly all the "life" there is in the physical universe. I believe that we are the rarest of the rare, created by a loving God for the sole purpose of having His creation willfully love Him in return.

Why then create the rest of the universe? I believe it's all for us...both here and now for us to wonder at and discover, and in the future when this physical realm is done away with as we know it and the true reality of the spirit realm is fully realized within the physical universe.

Call me crazy, call me arrogant...it's ok--my belief does not depend on anyone's agreement. =)

I'm not trying to start a theological argument here. Just stating what I believe.

[Clovis]

Hey, somebody is listening. Glad you enjoy the topic. We astronomers have it easy in that regard. The general public really enjoys hearing about astronomy stuff, as opposed to things like particle physics.

So true. I love astronomy!

"Higgs boson discovered!!" -- meh...

"Earth sized planet discovered in star's habitable zone... would you like to know more?" YES!!! CLICK CLICK CLICK

With as large as the universe is... and it's quite possibly infinite, there has to be other life.

If the universe is infinite then there is no such thing as fiction.

Roll 100 thirty-two sided dice enough times and eventually they will all come up with 1's -- with a large enough number, it doesn't matter how rare something is, it becomes a mathematical inevitability.