Finding a second earth

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#1

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/10/-nasaharvard-teams-say-finding-a-second-earth-could-happen-anytime-now.html

It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars."

David Latham -Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

To date, Planet hunters have spotted more than 300 planets beyond our solar system, but the vast majority are hot, Jupiter-sized planets that would dwarf the Earth and are almost certainly lifeless.

A few weeks ago, the first rocky planet was found outside solar system, but the surface temperature is far too hot to sustain life. The planet, called CoRoT-7b, is the first planet beyond our solar system with a proven density similar to Earth’s, astronomers say. Most known exoplanets are large gas giants like Jupiter.

The tiny planet was discovered orbiting a star slightly smaller and cooler than our sun, about 500 light-years away. As the planet passed in front of its star, it eclipsed a small portion of the star’s light, causing a dip in brightness.

Astronomers may be on the brink of discovering a second Earth-like planet, a find that would add fresh impetus to the search for extraterrestrial life. Astronomers from six major centers, including NASA, Harvard and the University of Colorado, agreed at a conference last year that advances in technology suggest scientists are on the verge of being able to detect the presence of small, rocky planets, much like our own, around distant stars for the first time. The planets are considered the most likely habitats for extraterrestrial life.
Finding a rocky planet with an Earth-like density brings us one step closer to discovering another planet similar to our own. A twin-Earth beyond the solar system could provide the best chance of finding life elsewhere in the universe.

Maybe this one will have only Democrats or Republicans or black or white or red or may green. May all straight or gay or all pretty or all ugly or all tall or all short. Maybe all will believe in My God or your God or no God. Or maybe they will all just look like me.

#2

I want to find Middle Earth. Uhm, If their all Gay, well, how does that work?

#3

[QUOTE=Zathros;2445482]I want to find Middle Earth. Uhm, If their all Gay, well, how does that work?[/QUOTE] I think they updated clonecd to replciate dna :cool:

#4

I wanted to throw this into the mix.
It is a bold presumption that "Jupiter-sized planets are almost certainly lifeless."
That would be lifeless of a life form like us.
I think spirit beings like angels could exist on any planet.
Aside from those there could & probably are lifeforms beyond our definition or knowlege to detect.Maybe on Jupiter itself.

#5

If there is life elsewhere, I think it will be stranger than we can imagine or even recognize. Especially is it wasn’t all seeded by a master intelligence.

#6

“Maybe really massive creatures who could come to our, and leap over buildings, in a single bound. Huge intelligent dinosaur sized republicans, with huge right wing agenda’s and their huge democratic democratic counterparts. Then we could watch a planet screwed up on a massive level.” …said the tiny Ant size aliens who found Earth.

#7

My believe is that if and when we find something, the chances are it will be on the microscopic level… even so it will be a big breakthrough, I just hope I will be alive to live the moment.

#8

We know about .1% of all the matter there is out there. Who thinks we are unique could also think we are space waste. A malfunction. A wrong byte unfortunately not corrected by automatic code correction. Hazardous. All thinking, theory, thought, anything happens here on Earth in our dimension(s). We may think we are important, but who knows we shouldn’t exist at all. Damn you amino acids and your mutation schemes! Are we more than just a bunch of cells working in harmony?

There are infinite planets. Not on all planets there is life, so the amount of planets that supports life is smaller than infinite. Anything smaller related to infinite reaches 0. So there is no life based on our own logic.

And now a nice story:

“They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”
“Meat?”
“There’s no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”
“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars.”
“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”
“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”
“They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.”
“That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.”
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they’re made out of meat.”
“Maybe they’re like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”
“Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?”
“Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.”
“Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.”
“No brain?”
“Oh, there is a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat!”
“So… what does the thinking?”
“You’re not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat.”
“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”
“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?”
“Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.”
“Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.”
“So what does the meat have in mind?”
“First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual.”
“We’re supposed to talk to meat?”
“That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio. ‘Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?’ That sort of thing.”
“They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?”
“Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.”
“I thought you just told me they used radio.”
“They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.”
“Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?”
“Officially or unofficially?”
“Both.”
“Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multi-beings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
“It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?”
“I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say?” `Hello, meat. How’s it going?’ But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
“Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.”
“So we just pretend there’s no one home in the universe.”
“That’s it.”
“Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?”
“They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.”
“A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.”
“And we can mark this sector unoccupied.”
“Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?”
“Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.”
“They always come around.”
“And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone.”

#9

[QUOTE=Mr. Belvedere;2446778]We know about .1% of all the matter there is out there. Who thinks we are unique could also think we are space waste. A malfunction. A wrong byte unfortunately not corrected by automatic code correction. Hazardous. All thinking, theory, thought, anything happens here on Earth in our dimension(s). We may think we are important, but who knows we shouldn’t exist at all. Damn you amino acids and your mutation schemes! Are we more than just a bunch of cells working in harmony?

There are infinite planets. Not on all planets there is life, so the amount of planets that supports life is smaller than infinite. Anything smaller related to infinite reaches 0. So there is no life based on our own logic.

And now a nice story:[/QUOTE]Mr B where’s that story from?

#10

[QUOTE=Mr. Belvedere;2446778]There are infinite planets. Not on all planets there is life, so the amount of planets that supports life is smaller than infinite. Anything smaller related to infinite reaches 0. So there is no life based on our own logic.[/QUOTE] Your infinity logic is wrong. You need to study up on number theory and/or measure theory. :wink:

#11

[QUOTE=Hemispasm;2446805]Mr B where’s that story from?[/QUOTE]

This guy. And he’s honored it shows up on the internet. It’s a fantastic story.

#12

[QUOTE=DrageMester;2446881]Your infinity logic is wrong. You need to study up on number theory and/or measure theory. ;)[/QUOTE]

Don’t mock Douglas Adams, you heathen!! :bigsmile:

#13

[QUOTE=Mr. Belvedere;2446928]Don’t mock Douglas Adams, you heathen!! :bigsmile:[/QUOTE] Well… to put it in other terms, your Improbability and Bistromathics are wrong too. :cool:

#14

[QUOTE=Mr. Belvedere;2446927]This guy. And he’s honored it shows up on the internet. It’s a fantastic story.[/QUOTE]
Awesome! Have to do some reading :slight_smile:

#15

Let´s assume the geologists are correct - that the earth is 4.5 billion years old.
Humans have existed in their current form (cognisant thinking etc) for maybe 4 million.
Whatever it took to get us into this condition for this period of time…needs to be matched somewhere else within some sort of reachable distance at more or less the same time in order to be relevant.

I personally don´t find the odds favour this…and so for me it approximates something less than the impact of pissing into the solar wind.

#16

[QUOTE=deanimator;2447036]Let´s assume the geologists are correct - that the earth is 4.5 billion years old.
Humans have existed in their current form (cognisant thinking etc) for maybe 4 million.
Whatever it took to get us into this condition for this period of time…needs to be matched somewhere else within some sort of reachable distance at more or less the same time in order to be relevant.[/QUOTE]

You could be wrong on that last point. Who says we are at the end stage of evolution? Life has taken hundreds of millions of years to get where we are now. Humans are not even 1% of the evolutionary scale, so if Darwin is right we still can evolve an insane amount of times during the next 4 billion years.
Perhaps we are eating Silicon, breathing CO2, and exhaling Helium in a million years.

The other thing is that we now kinda “know” what happened. Since the beginning of time the amino acids and organisms just adapted because they had to instinctively. Now humans are here, aware of the situation and possibilities, they may be able to speed up, enhance or totally mess up their own evolution.