Super-Earths Found In Habitable Zones

[Friday13]

Actually, after spending enough time on this planet I would say there might be a reason why no other lifeform has attempted to contact us...

Now you're talkin'! I agree.

 

[Friday13]

I believe dogs, cats, hell cockroaches might be more further long than us...

So yes, and we're that special child in the universe that the rest of the kids ignore because you never know if that kid might bite you, hump you, or try to be your friend...

I really have to go with Jack on this one, OG. I go more to the "Close Encounters" outlook than the "Mars Attacks". It's still possible that both could be realistic expectations. Also, I think that, if we actually get "out there", we could BE the "bad aliens" from "Independence Day".

 

[Friday13]

The inquisition is no longer active

It seems as tho some religious fanatics are trying to reactivate it, RC...and, in US, they're republicans.

 

[Friday13]

There are a whole lotta things that have to fall into place, for a planet to support life. A narrow range of temps., is an obvious one. And hey...it's good to have a solid underfoot as well! And..liquid water...a stable atmosphere..and all that shit.

Once again, fair...why do humans assume that all "life" has to mimic ours? Isn't that a "religious concept"? It's just pure arrogance to assume that we are the ultimate life form.

 

[Friday13]

Excellent, OG...thanx for that one.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

I really have to go with Jack on this one, OG. I go more to the "Close Encounters" outlook than the "Mars Attacks". It's still possible that both could be realistic expectations. Also, I think that, if we actually get "out there", we could BE the "bad aliens" from "Independence Day".

We were definitely the 'bad aliens' in Avatar. Presumably, that is why a lot of conservative folks loathed that movie.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

I remember reading a piece some time back, as to how life might evolve differently as a function of a planet's gravity. If I remember it right, it theorized that life on planets with a stronger pull than ours, would be lower and flatter.

Probably no giraffes on Kepler 62e.......

 

[Friday13]

 

[JackDallas]

It's in a HELLUVA lot better shape than it was when George W. Bush walked out of the Oval Office for the last time. That's not 'opinion'; that's objective fact.

only in the demented minds of people like you.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

only in the demented minds of people like you.

During George W. Bush's last five months in office, United States GDP was collapsing at an annualized rate of 9.0%, which was even more rapid than the collapse that occurred in the early years of the Great Depression. Now GDP is growing at an annualized rate of about 3.0%. A 12 percentage point change.

Or, in other words, you are just stupid.

Nice job of thread-jacking, by the way. I submit a top post regarding the amazing scientific discoveries that are being made today, and you immediately try to turn it into a wildly irrational harangue about 'liberals'.

 

[fairsheet]

We ponder the reasons why we have no absolute proof of aliens contacting us. We think that our lack of proof might suggest that there is no advanced life form out there.

But..I think it might have more to do with the incredible distances involved. We can't know for sure - for sure, but it's possible that there are physical limits to what life of any form, might endure. And, it's possible that there are physical limits to the sorts of speeds that life might actually attain - and survive.

I don't think it's absolutely out of the question that some alien life form may've blundered upon our earth, some time way back. But, given the vastness of the universe?..it may be expecting a little much, to expect them to return. As well...it seems science USED to be convinced that the radio waves sent out by the likes of SETI, would travel on indefinitely and intact, until they hit some sort of receiving station. But, science has now figured out that those radio waves degrade over time and distance.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

We ponder the reasons why we have no absolute proof of aliens contacting us. We think that our lack of proof might suggest that there is no advanced life form out there.

But..I think it might have more to do with the incredible distances involved. We can't know for sure - for sure, but it's possible that there are physical limits to what life of any form, might endure. And, it's possible that there are physical limits to the sorts of speeds that life might actually attain - and survive.

I don't think it's absolutely out of the question that some alien life form may've blundered upon our earth, some time way back. But, given the vastness of the universe?..it may be expecting a little much, to expect them to return. As well...it seems science USED to be convinced that the radio waves sent out by the likes of SETI, would travel on indefinitely and intact, until they hit some sort of receiving station. But, science has now figured out that those radio waves degrade over time and distance.

It's the Drake Equation vs the Fermi Paradox......

 

[fairsheet]

It's the Drake Equation vs the Fermi Paradox......

I'll have to look those two up, and get back to ya!

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

I'll have to look those two up, and get back to ya!

Well, briefly, the Drake Equation says there should be LOTS of civilizations out there----millions, in our own galaxy. And the Fermi Paradox asks, well, if there are all these civilizations out there, WHERE ARE THEY? And why have they not visited us yet?

If a civilization becomes advanced enough to be capable of interstellar voyages, they should, in theory, be able to very quickly take over an entire galaxy. But we know (with reasonable surety) that there is NO galactic civilization or empire out there. We would have been able to detect them by now.

A few weeks ago, New Scientist magazine had a very interesting article on means of looking for extraterrestrial civilizations that did NOT involve listening for radio signals. [Very advanced civilizations might not even be using radio waves for communications.] The idea involved looking for signs of extensive stellar engineering, such as the building of ring-worlds or Dyson spheres. The thing that jumped out at me from the article was the claim that if there are galaxies out there where some hyper-advanced civilization has built literally millions of Dyson spheres (a stunning thought in and of itself), we should be able to detect them even if their galaxies are hundreds of millions of light years away from us, possibly even billions of light years, from the spectra of such galaxies being very unusual.

 

[fairsheet]

Well, briefly, the Drake Equation says there should be LOTS of civilizations out there----millions, in our own galaxy. And the Fermi Paradox asks, well, if there are all these civilizations out there, WHERE ARE THEY? And why have they not visited us yet?

If a civilization becomes advanced enough to be capable of interstellar voyages, they should, in theory, be able to very quickly take over an entire galaxy. But we know (with reasonable surety) that there is NO galactic civilization or empire out there. We would have been able to detect them by now.

A few weeks ago, New Scientist magazine had a very interesting article on means of looking for extraterrestrial civilizations that did NOT involve listening for radio signals. [Very advanced civilizations might not even be using radio waves for communications.] The idea involved looking for signs of extensive stellar engineering, such as the building of ring-worlds or Dyson spheres. The thing that jumped out at me from the article was the claim that if there are galaxies out there where some hyper-advanced civilization has built literally millions of Dyson spheres (a stunning thought in and of itself), we should be able to detect them even if their galaxies are hundreds of millions of light years away from us, possibly even billions of light years, from the spectra of such galaxies being very unusual.

I'm inclined to believe (absent ANY proof!), that there probably are some basic physical limitations that no amount of advanced technology and genius, can overcome. Of course we might assume that with the umpteen different opportunities for life, that might exist as a function of the vastness of our universe, the "odds" are in favor of some other civilization having advanced well beyond ours. But, that "up side" isn't infinite. It's certainly limited by time itself (the age of the universe) AND it may be limited by the physical limitations to which I allude.

Forced to guess though, I'm going to guess that there ARE other life forms out there, that have evolved beyond that of non-human animals here on earth. In other words, they've at least arrived at a point of reason, self-awareness, and the ability to craft complex objects. BUT...l'll betcha they're similar to us, in that they're assuming there MUST be some super-advanced civilization somewhere out there.

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

I'm inclined to believe (absent ANY proof!), that there probably are some basic physical limitations that no amount of advanced technology and genius, can overcome. Of course we might assume that with the umpteen different opportunities for life, that might exist as a function of the vastness of our universe, the "odds" are in favor of some other civilization having advanced well beyond ours. But, that "up side" isn't infinite. It's certainly limited by time itself (the age of the universe) AND it may be limited by the physical limitations to which I allude.

Forced to guess though, I'm going to guess that there ARE other life forms out there, that have evolved beyond that of non-human animals here on earth. In other words, they've at least arrived at a point of reason, self-awareness, and the ability to craft complex objects. BUT...l'll betcha they're similar to us, in that they're assuming there MUST be some super-advanced civilization somewhere out there.

There are good reasons for believing that there MUST be civilizations out there far more advanced than us; though not necessarily in our own galaxy. The best measurement of the age of the universe, as of 22 March 2013, is 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years[1][2][3] (4.354 ± 0.012 × 1017 seconds) within the Lambda-CDM concordance model. Our own Sun is actually a third-generation star, only some 5 billion years old. It may be the first-generation stars would be unlikely to have life-bearing planets, due to a lack of heavy elements (which are produced by stellar nucleosynthesis), but there must be second-generation stars that harbored life-bearing planetary systems.

As for me, I am glad that someone is going to undertake a search for these hypothetical hyper-advanced civilizations out there in the cosmos. If astronomers find some galaxy hundreds of millions of light years away, where it seems that millions of Dyson spheres have been constructed, that will likely not convince the public, but it would convince most scientists.

 

[OldGaffer]

 

[LeRoy_Was_Here]

View attachment 6060

Well, but that CAN'T be the Milky Way Galaxy. We've never seen it from that vantage point.