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Prospect of life in deep space as Nasa probe finds hundreds of new planets

danarhea

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And guess what? 140 of the new planets found seem to have both land and water.

Hundreds of new planets have been discovered by Nasa's new space probe, sparking new hope of life outside our solar system.
Up to 140 of the newly-found planets are rocky and Earth-like containing both land and water, conditions which could allow simple lifeforms to develop.
The Kepler probe - which constantly monitors more than 150,000 stars for tell-tale signs of planets orbiting them - also may have found five new solar systems, Nasa said.

And this is just a small survey of a very small piece of the sky.

We are NOT alone in the Universe, but we might as well be. Even if there was an advanced civilization at Proxima Centauri, our closest star, the distance makes meaningful communication a meaningless concept. And what about the planet that have been found? They are hundreds, if not thousands of times this distance.

We are NOT alone in the Universe, but we ARE, which is plenty reason to take care of what we have. We are not going anywhere anytime soon, so responsible stewardship of the Earth is absolutely essential to our well being and long term survival.

Article is here.
 
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Utterly fascinating stuff.
 
We are NOT alone in the Universe, but we might as well be. Even if there was an advanced civilization at Proxima Centauri, our closest star, the distance makes meaningful communication a meaningless concept. And what about the planet that have been found? They are hundreds, if not thousands of times this distance.

Assumptions are often wrong. We could communicate with a civilization at Proxima (actually more likely at Alpha Centauri A which is a G type main sequence rather than Proxima which is a red dwarf), with a turnaround time of eight years using radio comms. That's hardly impossible.

As for whether we are alone... we have no knowlege of how common life is when the conditions are right; nor how common vertebrate life is vs invertebrate; or how often vertibrate life reaches sapience. There might be many worlds that can support life and yet lack sapient life.

We are NOT alone in the Universe, but we ARE, which is plenty reason to take care of what we have. We are not going anywhere anytime soon, so responsible stewardship of the Earth is absolutely essential to our well being and long term survival.

Article is here.


Bolded sentence... that might be the baseline assumption but it is far from certain. Every year there are new theories in fundamental physics that threaten to bend or break our assumptions of what is or is not possible. Someone might be dotting the last "i" on a dissertation discovering the GUT (grand unification of forces theory] and turning the world upside down more than Einstein at this very moment.

There are already theoretical methods of bypassing the relativistic limits; such as Alcubierre's "warp" drive. No we don't have a practical way to implement it.... yet....

Sure; the smart money says no one here [not even Dav] will live to cross that vast gulf and set foot on an explanet... but if we accept that premise and shrug and forget about it we've created a self-fulfilling prophesy against it.
 
Under the article, various comments have been left and most of them are very depressing indeed. The brainwashing of people, especially the young, with this "Man is destroying the Earth"/etc BS is certainly leaving its mark, and it is an ugly one: a profound negativism about their own species.

To be honest, space is the limit, imo. Space exploration is far too risky and expensive for human beings, why don't we just look after the planet we have rather than fantasize about colonising other planets, which we'd inevitably ruin.

Space exploration isn't really just about science. It often feels as if it's another platform of greed. Being used to showcase power, as a competition (Cold War), a way to gain military dominance and now fill out the sci-fi fantasy of occupying another planet that isn't ours to take.

- Effy G/Aged 17, West Midlands, England, 25/7/2010 14:54


:doh

Please tell me most young people don't think like that...
 
The planet-hunting telescope, launched in April 2009, has so far confirmed only five alien planets beyond the solar system, mission scientists told SPACE.com.

The erroneous reports of new planets were generated in response to a recent videotaped speech Kepler co-investigator Dimitar Sasselov gave at a TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) conference in July.

tehran times : Claims of 100 Earth-like planets not true
 
I wonder how the Christians are gonna explain life on other worlds?

Surely god would have mentioned it in the bible........

(oh wait it was written by a bunch of dudes in the desert 2000 years ago)
 
I wonder how the Christians are gonna explain life on other worlds?

Surely god would have mentioned it in the bible........

(oh wait it was written by a bunch of dudes in the desert 2000 years ago)



Irrelevant flame baiting, so bite me.
 

They don't believe in earth-like planets, but they believe Muhammad traveled up into the sky. Well, where did Muhammad go up there? It had to some place, didn't it? Couldn't have been a star, too damn hot. Couldn't have been an asteroid or comet, no way to breathe. Couldn't have been a moon..... Wait, a large moon might work, but it would have to be orbiting around a planet. If there is no planet, then there is no moon. So, tell me, where the hell is Muhammad? :mrgreen:
 
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They don't believe in earth-like planets, but they believe in Muhammad. LOL.

Doesn't fit their ideology I guess...

But this is awesome news. Stuff like this is always interesting.
 
Humanity is not going to make meaningful strides into space until its social development arrives at a more stable place. With all of the resources we are putting into war, political deception, consumerism and manufacturing of useless things, and destruction of our planet, far less effort and energy is going toward better understanding our universe. I don't deny that discoveries are being made but we are running on a clock right now; we have to arrive at the most important discoveries before our time is up.

Much more of humanity needs to be on board for this to be practical, and personally, I would rather not see humans enter into meaningful space travel until we have learned to control our basic instincts such as greed, fear, violence, etc. We would only do damage to the universe and our impulses would likely jeopardize any meaningful discoveries we make out there.
 
Dave Attell on why we won't ever explore much of space.
 
Humanity is not going to make meaningful strides into space until its social development arrives at a more stable place. With all of the resources we are putting into war, political deception, consumerism and manufacturing of useless things, and destruction of our planet, far less effort and energy is going toward better understanding our universe. I don't deny that discoveries are being made but we are running on a clock right now; we have to arrive at the most important discoveries before our time is up.

Much more of humanity needs to be on board for this to be practical, and personally, I would rather not see humans enter into meaningful space travel until we have learned to control our basic instincts such as greed, fear, violence, etc. We would only do damage to the universe and our impulses would likely jeopardize any meaningful discoveries we make out there.


Dude, that would be approximately never.

Humanity is not perfectable. Greed, fear and violence are inherent in our nature and will never be entirely or even largely eradicated. War, in some fashion, is going to be with us forever, even if its forms change a great deal.

The "damage we are doing to the Earth" is vastly overstated. All of humanity and all our works are minescule compared to this planet; doing damage to the universe is mightly unlikely.

Yet at the same time I think you give humanity far too little credit. For sixty years we've had the means to inflict megadeath in the form of full-scale nuclear war, yet we have refrained. Our industry (in the modernized West at least) is clean as a whistle compared to what it was like in 1900, and we get better at it every decade. We've managed to avoid having any more wars on the scale of WW2 for sixty years as well.

Just because everyone isn't jumping on the socialist and environmental-extremist-panic bandwagons doesn't mean we're the interstellar equivalent of neanderthal baboons. Just because the movie Avatar chose to portray us as heartless greedy bastards who wouldn't care about native sapients doesn't mean that is how it would really be.

Wow, a generation of enviromental-extremism being taught to schoolkids has really done untold damage... I hadn't realized just how deep this self-hatred of humanity ran.
 
And guess what? 140 of the new planets found seem to have both land and water.



And this is just a small survey of a very small piece of the sky.

We are NOT alone in the Universe, but we might as well be. Even if there was an advanced civilization at Proxima Centauri, our closest star, the distance makes meaningful communication a meaningless concept. And what about the planet that have been found? They are hundreds, if not thousands of times this distance.

We are NOT alone in the Universe, but we ARE, which is plenty reason to take care of what we have. We are not going anywhere anytime soon, so responsible stewardship of the Earth is absolutely essential to our well being and long term survival.

Article is here.

You mean we cannot deport Obama and his Chicago thugs to another planet.
 
Dude, that would be approximately never.

Humanity is not perfectable. Greed, fear and violence are inherent in our nature and will never be entirely or even largely eradicated. War, in some fashion, is going to be with us forever, even if its forms change a great deal.

The "damage we are doing to the Earth" is vastly overstated. All of humanity and all our works are minescule compared to this planet; doing damage to the universe is mightly unlikely.

Yet at the same time I think you give humanity far too little credit. For sixty years we've had the means to inflict megadeath in the form of full-scale nuclear war, yet we have refrained. Our industry (in the modernized West at least) is clean as a whistle compared to what it was like in 1900, and we get better at it every decade. We've managed to avoid having any more wars on the scale of WW2 for sixty years as well.

Just because everyone isn't jumping on the socialist and environmental-extremist-panic bandwagons doesn't mean we're the interstellar equivalent of neanderthal baboons. Just because the movie Avatar chose to portray us as heartless greedy bastards who wouldn't care about native sapients doesn't mean that is how it would really be.

Wow, a generation of enviromental-extremism being taught to schoolkids has really done untold damage... I hadn't realized just how deep this self-hatred of humanity ran.

It is shocking just how indoctrination works, but in fairness we were also indoctrinated to some extent. :)

Anyway, on your opening comment, I too feel as though these human traits aren't going away anytime soon. Much to the dismay of our liberal friends, there will be no mass utopian delusion, and all of a sudden everyone on Earth will get along. It's not going to happen that way. It's going to be a bloody mess, and only the strongest most motivated demographic will be left standing, and to some extent, this has always been our destiny. I'm in the camp that thinks freedom, and liberty are important virtues, so I'm pulling for the good guys. The tyrannical, or oppressive will have their say, but I'm guessing (Betting actually) that we are more motivated than them, and certainly smart enough to know that pity-propaganda although working presently, will not last long enough to see freedoms total demise. :)


Tim-
 
The "damage we are doing to the Earth" is vastly overstated. All of humanity and all our works are minescule compared to this planet; doing damage to the universe is mightly unlikely.
This is a mixture of true and not true. If you look at the land-covered sections of earth's surface (not including ice caps), something like 75% of it owes it's appearence to us. We've caused mass extinctions, nearly destroyed the ozone layer, and are causing global warming. We've created dust bowls, more prarie than you can shake a cow at, and possibly an ice age.

However, we're also very good at conserving things if we think about it before acting. That's the thing to work on.

EDIT: If you're interested, I heartily recommend watching the last in the series of How The Earth Changed History. The whole series is fascinating, each episode looking at how one of the four elements (earth/air/water/fire) have shaped the course of human development; the fifth and final one looks at how we have shaped the planet. Really interesting watching.
 
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This is a mixture of true and not true. If you look at the land-covered sections of earth's surface (not including ice caps), something like 75% of it owes it's appearence to us. We've caused mass extinctions, nearly destroyed the ozone layer, and are causing global warming. We've created dust bowls, more prarie than you can shake a cow at, and possibly an ice age.

However, we're also very good at conserving things if we think about it before acting. That's the thing to work on.

We're not causing global warming. You use the term mass extinctions incorrectly, and an Ice Age is barely defineable by the most trained scientists. :)

Tim-
 
We're not causing global warming. You use the term mass extinctions incorrectly, and an Ice Age is barely defineable by the most trained scientists. :)

Tim-
The mass extinctions happened a long time ago - don't think I'm talking about modern times.

As for the other two - I'll see you in the appropriate forum. Suffice to say that, speaking of trained scientists, the vast majority of those very same think that AGW is a solid theory.
 
Dude, that would be approximately never.

You live in America so I can understand why you would hold this belief.

Greed, fear and violence are inherent in our nature and will never be entirely or even largely eradicated. War, in some fashion, is going to be with us forever, even if its forms change a great deal.

No one said anything about eradicating those baser instincts. I said learn to control them.

The "damage we are doing to the Earth" is vastly overstated. All of humanity and all our works are minescule compared to this planet; doing damage to the universe is mightly unlikely.

The world's biggest mass extinction since the age of the dinosaurs is underway, and it's our fault. Human illness is increasing. We are destroying our own source of life. This is irrefutable from a scientific standpoint.

Yet at the same time I think you give humanity far too little credit. For sixty years we've had the means to inflict megadeath in the form of full-scale nuclear war, yet we have refrained. Our industry (in the modernized West at least) is clean as a whistle compared to what it was like in 1900, and we get better at it every decade. We've managed to avoid having any more wars on the scale of WW2 for sixty years as well.

That's very true, but I would also argue that the only reason why no one is using the nuclear bomb is because it would mean their own anhilation. Self-preservation trumps enemy hatred in most cases. If there were a way to use the bomb without consequence, you bet it would be happening already. That is the whole reason why deterrence works.

I don't mean to imply that we are not making progress at all, just that our progress is, I think, a bit overstated sometimes. We think that technology means we have improved significantly, but in a lot of ways humans are behaving exactly the same as they did 500-1000 years ago. The scenery has changed, not much else. We do have a chance to do it right this time though, I hope our leaders step up to the plate instead of giving in to those baser instincts.

Just because everyone isn't jumping on the socialist and environmental-extremist-panic bandwagons doesn't mean we're the interstellar equivalent of neanderthal baboons.

Woah... this comment is a bit out of left field.

Just because the movie Avatar chose to portray us as heartless greedy bastards who wouldn't care about native sapients doesn't mean that is how it would really be.

That movie sucked. The series is way better.

Wow, a generation of enviromental-extremism being taught to schoolkids has really done untold damage... I hadn't realized just how deep this self-hatred of humanity ran.

I don't hate humanity. I hope for the best, but I'm a realist. We aren't doing well right now. I am a firm believer that we live in degenerate times. Most of the things that humans could do in order to live a peaceful, undisturbed existence with steady, stable progress, we are not doing. In fact, we are usually doing the exact opposite.
 
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This is a mixture of true and not true. If you look at the land-covered sections of earth's surface (not including ice caps), something like 75% of it owes it's appearence to us. We've caused mass extinctions, nearly destroyed the ozone layer, and are causing global warming. We've created dust bowls, more prarie than you can shake a cow at, and possibly an ice age.

However, we're also very good at conserving things if we think about it before acting. That's the thing to work on.

EDIT: If you're interested, I heartily recommend watching the last in the series of How The Earth Changed History. The whole series is fascinating, each episode looking at how one of the four elements (earth/air/water/fire) have shaped the course of human development; the fifth and final one looks at how we have shaped the planet. Really interesting watching.

Some 75% of the planet is inhabited by humans?! That cannot be right. Humans take up small places if you did research on how the land in the states is used. You'd understand that-the numbers are something like this-humans are not that all significant, for example 35% of the US is forests another 35% is farms, 28% is commercial, industry, roads, etc and where humans live is 2%. And we are a nation that is spread all over the place and by that I mean we have homes and stuff bigger than what most nations live in. Most of the world live in squaler and are dependent on food aid, some like 25% of nations need to import their food.

WE CAN use science to replace farms, that would free up at least 30-42% of the land right there and would add more forests for your precious animals. However, extinctions are not because humans are encroaching on the land of animals-animals can live anywhere-its that humans go into forests, jungles, etc looking for animals to kill for the amount of money their furs, scent are worth in the black market. The truth is that if we helped developed more nations by economic means so those people do not have to resort to a life of crime. We can see some real change. But regardless if every nation developed to a first world nation there still would be much crime because we are humans. And we cannot shun the natural instincts in us no matter how hard we try.

But we are different from other mammals. That is why we can use science to better the world for all of us to live in.
 
Some 75% of the planet is inhabited by humans?! That cannot be right. Humans take up small places if you did research on how the land in the states is used. You'd understand that-the numbers are something like this-humans are not that all significant, for example 35% of the US is forests another 35% is farms, 28% is commercial, industry, roads, etc and where humans live is 2%. And we are a nation that is spread all over the place and by that I mean we have homes and stuff bigger than what most nations live in. Most of the world live in squaler and are dependent on food aid, some like 25% of nations need to import their food.
No, I said we've changed the appearance of 75% of the non-ice-covered land on the planet, not that we live there. Just looking at your figures fot the US, that's about right - you've got 65% there which has definitely been human-altered, plus an unknown amount of forest.

WE CAN use science to replace farms, that would free up at least 30-42% of the land right there and would add more forests for your precious animals. However, extinctions are not because humans are encroaching on the land of animals-animals can live anywhere-its that humans go into forests, jungles, etc looking for animals to kill for the amount of money their furs, scent are worth in the black market. The truth is that if we helped developed more nations by economic means so those people do not have to resort to a life of crime. We can see some real change. But regardless if every nation developed to a first world nation there still would be much crime because we are humans. And we cannot shun the natural instincts in us no matter how hard we try.

But we are different from other mammals. That is why we can use science to better the world for all of us to live in.
Habitat destruction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It's not just that we go out hunting - although you're quite right, that helps too. It's that some animals can't live 'anywhere'.

I'm not talking about whether what we've done is ethical or not - for now, at least - all I'm saying is that it's fairly undeniable that we've done it in the first place.
 
The mass extinctions happened a long time ago - don't think I'm talking about modern times.

As for the other two - I'll see you in the appropriate forum. Suffice to say that, speaking of trained scientists, the vast majority of those very same think that AGW is a solid theory.

I've long since learned my lesson in getting into pissing contests with other scientists over global warming. There is no verifiable data that even correlates to man-made global warming. I've seen it all. If you have something new, sure invite me over then, but if it's media this, and media that - link after link, I'll differ in lew of better ways to waste my time. Show me non partisan science, based on legitimate models, with interpretable data, and you'll have an interested party, otherwise, no thanks!


Tim-
 
I've long since learned my lesson in getting into pissing contests with other scientists over global warming. There is no verifiable data that even correlates to man-made global warming. I've seen it all. If you have something new, sure invite me over then, but if it's media this, and media that - link after link, I'll differ in lew of better ways to waste my time. Show me non partisan science, based on legitimate models, with interpretable data, and you'll have an interested party, otherwise, no thanks!


Tim-
I would suggest looking here. It's a good starting place, at least.
 
You live in America so I can understand why you would hold this belief.
Wow! You are showing something natural of a human, hatred for something different than you. What exactly is wrong with America? Are we more realists than the rest of the world?


No one said anything about eradicating those baser instincts. I said learn to control them.
We can not control them. There will always be bursts of rage, hatred, and other deviant behavior. It is something natural.



The world's biggest mass extinction since the age of the dinosaurs is underway, and it's our fault. Human illness is increasing. We are destroying our own source of life. This is irrefutable from a scientific standpoint.
I do not know whether to laugh or cry. Humans have been predicting their own end since we have been on this planet. Nothing apocalypto is going to happen. Take it easy.




I don't mean to imply that we are not making progress at all, just that our progress is, I think, a bit overstated sometimes. We think that technology means we have improved significantly, but in a lot of ways humans are behaving exactly the same as they did 500-1000 years ago. The scenery has changed, not much else. We do have a chance to do it right this time though, I hope our leaders step up to the plate instead of giving in to those baser instincts.
I do not believe you understand how indoctrination works. But it is ok.








I don't hate humanity. I hope for the best, but I'm a realist. We aren't doing well right now. I am a firm believer that we live in degenerate times. Most of the things that humans could do in order to live a peaceful, undisturbed existence with steady, stable progress, we are not doing. In fact, we are usually doing the exact opposite.
You are not a realist. You are making predictable statements, do not get me wrong. I know you are a smart kid. We are a degenerate species and we have never acted in a good manner. If anything what you are living through now has been one of the best if not the best time for a human to live as of our whole existence. We are making progress and we will not stop. However, progress is not in the way people behave but in what advances a small group of individuals make for the rest of the species. A politician does not change the world for the greater good, a scientist does. A politician is most likely to destroy the planet and that is something bad.
 
Habitat destruction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It's not just that we go out hunting - although you're quite right, that helps too. It's that some animals can't live 'anywhere'.

I'm not talking about whether what we've done is ethical or not - for now, at least - all I'm saying is that it's fairly undeniable that we've done it in the first place.
The problem with what you provided in the link is that it is saying family planning for areas that are growing rapidly. What is left out is that some of those areas that grow rapidly are because of the emigres from other areas. So while one area grows rapidly another four or five or more areas shrink because of that fast growing area and the ones who stay behind are the old. It is not like everyone who moves there is going to be having 20 kids. If anything urban areas are a Godsend to humanity. Why? Because urban areas encourage smaller things but a material lifestyle. As a result people who move to cities are not likely to have many children which means that the population won't grow as fast.

Quit painting a doomsday picture. Life is hard and it has never been easy and there has always been bad things happening not only to "nature" but to us as well. In the end the planet will decide what to do with us. Regardless if we change and become a 100% recycled society in all nations the planet might just choose to enter into an ice age period or something that will erode hundreds of thousands if not millions of people faster than a blink of the eye.
 
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