Astronomers Find Batch of 'Super Earths'

Originally posted by DimensionalDetective


I think with each of these new "earth-like" discoveries

Venus is an "earth-like" planet and so is Mars. This has nothing to do with life it just means they are not gas giants. Of course we have earth-like planets in the galaxy just look at our solar system we have three of them.

Also why is it reading through this thread you see the same thing people claiming that there must be life way more advanced that us?

Originally posted by BlackOps719
To assume that we are the only life sustaining planet in existence would be the height of arrogance. And mathematically speaking it would seem to me that it is almost impossible that there is NOT life out there on one of these earth like planets, and in reality there could potentially be an infinite number of planets that sustain life.

One day there will be proof that will be so undeniable that we will all be forced to accept this as fact. Great post!!

I feelthe exact same way! For someone to say that there is no way any other life anywhere, is just crazy talk!

Anyway, S+F DD! You always find good stuff!

Originally posted by illuminist
reply to post by centurion1211

 

just to be blunt, no flame intended, but it's pretty well known that UFOs use anti-gravity for planetary flight (so it doesn't really matter how much gravity the planet produces)

Well, that is pretty blunt for a "fact" that is not well known, but without any physical evidence is perhaps better defined as "well assumed".

My post was simply meant to be a thought exercise. Not simple enough for some maybe, but if the gravity is such that nothing flies on a planet, maybe any intelligent life that develops there also doesn't develop the desire to "look up" and wonder what's there. Doesn't think, "birds fly, so why can't I?" And/or since a civilization must crawl before walking or running, maybe an escape velocity 3 or 5 times the earth's would slow down or prohibit the development of the basic space flight. After all, look how difficult iit is to get into orbit from earth. And it's quite a reach to imagine a "grounded" civilization going straight to developing a warp drive, now isn't it?

Like I said, a thought exercise ...



[edit on 6/17/2008 by centurion1211]

Yea that makes sense. But we could speculate all day. I mean, I could say that such a grounded civilization was contacted by a space fairing one and they gave them technology in exchange for a rare resource found on that planet.
:-p

Don't get me wrong, I welcome such mental exercises.

The fact that people think about this stuff goes a long way.

Kudos mate

reply to post by MurderCityDevil


wow,, that actually made a hell of a lot of sense. thank you for that.
yeah how come they expecting us to believe whatever they say with less to go on then what we have on other topics. they would say that it is your over active imagination wanting to see somthing. well isnt it the same way with them? dont they too want to find desperatley another planet like earth? so it stands to reason i can happily say thier imaginations are working overtime.

Originally posted by illuminist
I could say that such a grounded civilization was contacted by a space fairing one and they gave them technology in exchange for a rare resource found on that planet.
:-p

That sure seems to be a lot to base a whole belief system on.

The lucky devils. I wonder what we could trade them for their warp drive (guess they don't have a "prime directive" either)? Wait, I have an idea ...

reply to post by Badge01


i agree, if your loooking for life it needs to be comparable in physiology and technology. i dont mean driving cars and looking like people. just enough that we can understand what we see as being life without all the deep philisophical qestions about what makes somthing a life form.
i think people may be able to understand fairly well in principle anyway technology on the order of maybe a few million years without it becoming too mystical. i think any kind of humanoid would be ideal. what are the chances for that though. i think what people are ultimatly looking for is a race to fill the gap in their own weakness. a species that has the capability to not only comunicate with us but make the universe a smaller place via some form of travel far more advanced than anything we can hope to have in the not to distant future. kind of like a guy waiting on a girl to hit on him in a bar. LOL dont expect to much unless your just really good looking, even then dont expect alot when you do get somthing she may not be hot. wow that was a rediculous example, but im only human.

a few misconceptions going on in this thread.

"super earths" are the name given to planets less than 10 earth mass, it has nothing to do with the conditions on the planet its about size only.

"earth like" or "terrestrial" planets are officialy planets bewteen 0.75 & 2 earth mass again this is size only. when you go above 2 earth mass the planets gravity will collect too much gas and have miles of thick cloud/gas like neptune, jupiter etc.

these plannets are way too close for life like ours. Much hotter than mercury at that distance. Liquid water on the surface impossible. The ones in tight orbits will also be tidally locked 1 side always permanent day the other night. On top of that the gravitational stress from the star will cause massive disruption to the planets interior and surface.

The good thing is they exist meaning smaller rocky planets should be common. Future telescope missions like kepler will bring home the bacon for exoplanet fans. It will find earth size planets (0.75-2 earth mass) in the habital zone (360 day orbits) of stars like sol

but i think technological intelligence is extremely rare. Probably so far apart that we will never find them. Which is quite a sad thought

[edit on 17-6-2008 by yeti101]

reply to post by centurion1211


lol.

well, according to modern UFOlogy we have already traded our citizens for technology. Im talking about abductions...

anyways this is kinda off topic.

reply to post by yeti101


Hi. Thanks for the clarifications. I managed to find the term on Wiki:

Super-Earth

A Super-Earth is the term often used to describe a large extrasolar terrestrial planet with a mass larger than Earth's mass and not exceeding ten times Earth's mass

There's also a link for 'Earth-Like' or terrestrial planets

Looks like Gliese 876-d is one of the most interesting being a Super Earth, but only a little larger than Earth. Some people would even classify it as a Terrestrial type.

i think technological intelligence is extremely rare. Probably so far apart that we will never find them. Which is quite a sad thought

I agree. As we find out more and more what it takes to make a habitable planet, the criterion becomes even narrower. When you add on what is needed for high techology, such as rare elements, silicon, germanium, and the common metals needed to build ships in sufficient quantities and close enough to the surface to mine, it seems like Earth is truly a unique planet.

Even though humans will discover at some point they are not unique as being the only human form beings they will discover they are unique in there own sort of ways.

That's why it kinda seems like there might be truth to the whole creator story...but then again what about evil greys lol...very interesting post

Originally posted by observe50
Even though humans will discover at some point they are not unique as being the only human form beings they will discover they are unique in there own sort of ways.

Yes but your comment is complete conjecture, just like eveyone else's.

There's no way of knowing, the opinion of new agers or self-proclaimed "reincarnated aliens" notwithstanding.

Why not post a comment based on some well thought out ideas or facts instead of continually dropping by to further some kind of lunacy?

Does a delusion prevent one from giving a well-reasoned argument?




[edit on 18-6-2008 by Badge01]

Originally posted by Badge01

Again on the 'it's arrogance not to believe' thing, I still think it's a hold-over to Argument From Intimidation. (IOW, it's an appeal to guilt or an attempt to force political correctness) It really has little bearing on the issue. It simply makes sense to withhold judgment on some issues because there's not enough information to make an informed decision.

I think either I've done a poor job in explaining what I meant or you've done a poor job in understanding me, because you kinda make my arrogance point for me in that last sentence. I believe it is arrogant to say "There is no other intelligent life in the universe. It only exists on Earth." I have no problem with someone being agnostic on the topic because they're just saying "I really don't know if they're out there or not and I'd like to see more evidence before I make a judgement one way or the other." That's cool and is actually anything but arrogant to say. As for the intimidation position you keep accusing me of, dude, I could not care less who believes in aliens and who doesn't... my belief is my own and completely independent of anyone else's thoughts on the matter. I'm not trying to intimidate anyone, appeal to anyone, or (LOL) force any sort of political correctness on this issue.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Well I don't know of anybody who says 'Humans are the only form of life in the Universe'. Even Seth Shostak says he thinks it's likely that the Galaxy is teeming with life, though most of it may be microscopic or simple forms.

My only objection is trying to talk about life in the Universe. It has no meaning to any discussion, because if there is one other sentient civilization on a planet in a Galaxy 100 light years from here and they are stuck on planet, then it is essentially the same as us being alone.

So, all I'd suggest is we talk about other life in our own Milky Way galaxy. That has meaning and there is a possibility, even if remote, that we might some day be able to communicate.

But even that has many problems unless we invoke some kind of fantastical science involving unproven things like worm-holes and sub-space communication. It's going to be nearly impossible to communicate if each message is going to be 200 years apart (100 years for the transmission to travel each way).

I think it's safe to stipulate that there is an almost 100% chance that other carbon-based life could exist in our Galaxy. But then you have to factor in time-scale. Then you have to determine if it's likely there are any sentient forms.

Let's stipulate that sentient life is probably rare, but not super rare. Maybe there are 10-100 sentient forms in our Galaxy. That's still very sparse and we are unlikely to 'bump into them'.

So my contention is that it's not arrogance at work here. Arrogance implies the attitude that we are special and entitled. I make no such claims. I'm only suggesting that the criteria for sentient life is likely to be very restrictive and the conditions that will support it will be very selective and narrow.

These are the conditions I see that apply.
1. The planet has to be of moderate climate and have a substantial quantity of water.
2. The planet has to be in a Goldilocks Zone of 'habitability' (low radiation and only sporadic planetary extinctions)
3. There has to be some kind of active renewal system, such as plate tectonics and deep ocean currents (and probably vulcanism) which will allow the planet to survive and -not- function like an enclosed biological system (which rapidly reaches a state of decay and death, like a small fishbowl)

These are probably the major factors.

Where I think some scientists make a mistake is they postulate that in the Galactic core that civilization density will be high. My theory is that there is likely to be too much radiation, since stars and black holes and cosmic background radiation is going to be quite high.

The other mistake people make is that their theory has to include an element of the fantastic, such as beings which don't require the basic necessities of carbon-based life as we know it (such as air, water and moderate climate). Certainly there are lots and lots of fantastic science fiction type scenarios that could be the case, including people made of rock who don't need water to survive. But that goes beyond rational discussion into the needlessly fantastic and ignores common sense.

When someone proclaims 'you're arrogant to think this' what are they saying? They're invoking guilt into the argument, pure and simple, and missing the potential for deep discussion and even rational disagreement.

2 cents.




[edit on 18-6-2008 by Badge01]

I disagree that discussion of non-carbon based sentient life forms is going beyond rational discussion. In fact, I also disagree with using the limits of space & time as we know them as a grounds for limiting our scope. The string theory, if ever proven, will almost certainly prove to be a road map to the "how" of seemingly instantaneous point to point interstellar travel. Ultimately, I don't think mankind will ever prove the string theory ourselves. Rather, I think it is more likely that it will be proven to us via disclosure from a visiting extraterrestrial race. Also, warped space-time isn't "fantastical." It's actually a component of Einstein's theory of relativity, which is anything but an equation of fantasy. The Alcubierre equation demonstrates that it is theoretically possible to warp Einstein's spacetime, relative to the vessel (or in the case of a data transmission, the transmission stream) ahead of the vessel and basically surf across the folds of space until you reach your destination. The time it takes you to get there would completely depend on how many folds you made and how much space you were able to fold on each wave. We know the mechanism, we merely lack (at this time) the technology to actually 'warp' spacetime in front of the vessel or stream. Again, the solution to that problem lies back with proving the string theory as well as proving the theory of special relativity which would allow faster than light speed particles to exist by which to form your warp mechanism in the first place. This is not "fantasy" it is theory and there's a HUGE difference between the two. Fantasy is Star Trek's "Beam me up, Scotty." Just because science fiction has embraced a number of cutting edge theories of physics for storylines doesn't mean that the theories, themselves, are to be taken lightly.

As for what constitues a habitable planet, science doesn't have that answer. When marine biologists discovered tube worms living in 200 degree water around volcanic vents 3 miles under the ocean's surface. Scientifically speaking, from everything the biologists knew to be "laws" of life, no life could have or should have existed under those conditions. Considering science's track record of constantly changing what can and cannot be achieved or what does and does not exist, it's a safe bet to say that just because we "believe" that life can't exist in carbon form on, say, Venus, doesn't make it true. So from that angle, we can neither prove nor disprove life on ANY planet, asteroid, or comet until we physicallt observe it's presence or lack of presence. Of course, this opens up another can of worms... in the case of non-carbon based "life" does it even qualify as being alive under our current guidelines for what constitues life? We can't even decide if viruses are alive, how could we possibly reach a concensus on whether a walking mass of, say, silica is a life form?

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Well eventually the government will tell you something. Science is a factor that himans use but not the end all be all. Science is the system that we use but how can it be the complete truth if we are still asking questions?
Maybe we do not understand science all the way? Maybe counting things out...

There is other life out there. I have put myself out there and even said that I was not from this planet. No one believes that, but the believe that life might be out there and when it is waving it hands at you and saying it is talking to you, you won't believe.

LOL.

So we get these amazing Hubble Pictures and the various scope pictures that they have out there are showing us amazing things and this has been said before. HOW COME WE HAVE SUCH CRAP MARS PHOTO's?

LOL.


It really is time to wake up for your own good and for the future of our civilization. If not it will be to late.

The place I come from has 10 different galaxies settled with our people living on multiple planets.

We are in the Milky Way Galaxy and Earth has been something we have visited many times and many other races have been her as well.

Another race made Atlantis and was using it as a rest/refuel point. This was not approved by us. So we sank it.

__________________________

These are just somethings that happen, just like you know somethings and accept them as Truth, these are the samethings I know.

People of Earth, Please allow yourself to get over greed and take care of your people. I am talking aboiut everyone need to take care of everyone.

You will not get off this planet and out in the wonderful universe that we live in and interact with others.

You do not like some people on this planet because of race or expect them to act a certain way, what are you going to do when there are other Alien races out there? How are you going to treat them?

You have been caught in a game of masters. What master to you want to listen to? The Master that is telling you a bunch of problems, has set rules for you to follow or you are penalized, showing you crap other planetary photo's that show nothing, no way out of war, can't help the people or do you want to follow the master that encourages the growth and new idea's, that wants everyone to prosper and for you to be able to get out there and explore and do what you want?