Scientists Have Discovered Another Earth With Probable Life!

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: rickymouse
It will take us twenty years to build a self sufficient huge space craft that can have a whole ecosystem in it and it won't need supplies.

We already have one of those. We call it "Earth."

very nice avatar you have there perhaps someone will sue ATS for seizures or start a thread on MIB

originally posted by: grey580
My spider senses are tingling.


oh look we found a planet that might support life.

oh look we just discovered a propulsion system to get us to said planet.

Hey! It already has a top secret US base on it.

Hmm. You hit the trifecta! Best guess award of the year.

a reply to: UFGarvin

Life is not 'probable' there. It's statistically un-probable. Highly so.

Why so? Which particular factors make it improbable?

originally posted by: UFGarvin
Life is not 'probable' there. It's statistically un-probable. Highly so.

Do you have any data to back up your statement? Can we see these so-called statistics?

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: UFGarvin

Life is not 'probable' there. It's statistically un-probable. Highly so.

Why so? Which particular factors make it improbable?

Well the main one is you need the right mix of chemicals.

If the planet formed without water then as far as we know its will be a dead rock.

Same if a number of other vital chemicals.

No hydrocarbons, likely no life ect

OP, since you have not sourced the first image, maybe you should edit to explain that it is not an actual image of Kepler-186F. Many people that read these threads are not familiar with the state of modern astronomy and will assume that the planet's appearance can be resolved and that 186F actually has an uncanny resemblance to Earth.

originally posted by: Spider879
I think your vid link is messed-up may wanna edit and repost.

Nah it worked for me, although they speak funny English.

Very interesting discovery, but

Its star is cooler than the sun

The Kepler-186 star is about half the mass of the sun,

If Kepler-186f were circling the sun, it would travel within the orbit of the planet Mercury, a planet that is not considered habitable. Because Kepler-186 is a relatively cool, red dwarf star, the planet still lies within the star's habitable zone.

www.space.com...

Soon we will have satellite telescopes so powerful they will be able to observe atmospheres. Right now all we are looking at are black dots going past a sun, which is pretty amazing.

If you think the OP is missing or lacking information watch the youtube video posted.

Wiki

At nearly 490 light-years (151 pc) distant, Kepler-186f is too remote and its star too faint for current telescopes or the next generation of planned telescopes to determine its mass or whether it has an atmosphere. However, the discovery of Kepler-186f demonstrates conclusively that there are other Earth-sized planets in habitable zones.

Oh well....

originally posted by: crazyewok
Well the main one is you need the right mix of chemicals.

That's a factor but I'm not sure if it's the main one.

Kepler 186F only receives a third the heat energy from its star that Earth does. I suppose this is why they are saying it's at the "outer edge" of the habitable zone.

Normally one of the biggest concerns about habitability for planets orbiting red dwarfs is the close proximity of the planet to the star, and the fact that it would be subjected to radiation not conducive to life. In fact if the planet received an amount of heat energy comparable to Earth, I think life would be considered far less likely because it would have to be much closer in which case the dose of radiation would be more likely lethal.

Since it's further away, the radiation dose probably isn't lethal but is one third the heat energy that Earth receives really that much like Earth?

www.nasa.gov...

Kepler-186f orbits its star once every 130-days and receives one-third the energy from its star that Earth gets from the sun, placing it nearer the outer edge of the habitable zone. On the surface of Kepler-186f, the brightness of its star at high noon is only as bright as our sun appears to us about an hour before sunset.

Am I the only one who thinks 67 percent less heat than Earth sounds like a huge difference from Earth? Sure if it has enough greenhouse gases to keep some water above the freezing temperature it could support some microbes, but it doesn't sound all that "earth-like". Even the Earth with three times the amount of heat spends a large portion of its life covered in glacial ice sheets, and there's some evidence the entire Earth "almost" may have been covered with ice in the past. We happen to be in an interglacial warm period now.

I think it's difficult to assess the probability of life on Kepler-186f, but the picture isn't as rosy as some people are trying to paint it in my opinion. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it's highly probable, there are too many unknowns. My guess is, it's probably about as likely to have life as Mars, which is possible but it's not a slam dunk by any means.

originally posted by: nerbot

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness

Sorted embedded clip for ya.

Drake's Equation is so out of date and now seems obsolete. Me thinks a few more factors need to be added (constantly).

The Drake equation is definitely not out of date (pun intended).

It is the temporal variable that is the most critical to actually interacting with any other civilization.

Food for thought, since this is turning into probability:

www.theguardian.com...
en.wikipedia.org...

The current theories for methane on Mars:

olivine or organic meteorites...

psst... They can be the same thing:

olivine meteorite cross section:



olivine: en.wikipedia.org...
Olivine is one of the weaker common minerals on the surface according to the Goldich dissolution series. It weathers to iddingsite (a combination of clay minerals, iron oxides and ferrihydrites) readily in the presence of water.[20] The presence of iddingsite on Mars would suggest that liquid water once existed there, and might enable scientists to determine when there was last liquid water on the planet.

A worldwide search is on for cheap processes to sequester CO2 by mineral reactions, called enhanced weathering. Removal by reactions with olivine is an attractive option, because it is widely available and reacts easily with the (acid) CO2 from the atmosphere. When olivine is crushed, it weathers completely within a few years, depending on the grain size. All the CO2 that is produced by burning 1 liter of oil can be sequestered by less than 1 liter of olivine. The reaction is exothermic but slow. To recover the heat produced by the reaction to produce electricity, a large volume of olivine must be thermally well-isolated. The end-products of the reaction are silicon dioxide, magnesium carbonate and small amounts of iron oxide

Picture of Mars methane signature:



Oh; BTW where is olivine formed? At the bottom of oceans... how did all that olivine get from the bottom of our ocean to the surface of Mars?

Probability still all that slim? Oh and some people are waiting on those figures UFGarvin

a reply to: greencmp

Did it take into account dwarf planets? How many planets do you think our current solar system has? Avg. person would say 9 or 8... try again is what they should be told.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

Nah, youtube probably removed that video due to come copy right violation. The title of song is listed if you wanna look it up.

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: greencmp

Did it take into account dwarf planets? How many planets do you think our current solar system has? Avg. person would say 9 or 8... try again is what they should be told.

The Drake equation is concerned with the likelihood of human communication/interaction with intelligent life.

Even if they are close enough, are they now enough?

originally posted by: CraftBuilder
OP, since you have not sourced the first image, maybe you should edit to explain that it is not an actual image of Kepler-186F. Many people that read these threads are not familiar with the state of modern astronomy and will assume that the planet's appearance can be resolved and that 186F actually has an uncanny resemblance to Earth.

Unfortunately, my system does not allow java link script sources... so credits and external links etc are a no go I have to embed manually.

Of course artist renditions are used a lot. But they are typically based on a lot of gathered spectro-analysis. NASA is not the sort to sensationalize to the public.

a reply to: crazyewok

Do you feel it is improbable that these chemicals will be found on Kepler 186F?

They are common, at any rate, all over the Solar system. Here is a list of compounds that the Rosetta probe has detected in outgassing from Comet 67P/C-G, now that it's getting nearer the Sun and starting to emit volatiles:

Water
Carbon monoxide
Carbon dioxide
Ammonia
Methane
Methanol
Formaldehyde
Hydrogen sulphide
Hydrogen cyanide
Sulphur dioxide
Carbon disulphide

originally posted by: grey580
My spider senses are tingling.


oh look we found a planet that might support life.

oh look we just discovered a propulsion system to get us to said planet.

Hey! It already has a top secret US base on it.

I suspect your spidey senses may be closer to the truth than most want to believe

originally posted by: game over man
Soon we will have satellite telescopes so powerful they will be able to observe atmospheres. Right now all we are looking at are black dots going past a sun, which is pretty amazing.

If you think the OP is missing or lacking information watch the youtube video posted.

Wiki

At nearly 490 light-years (151 pc) distant, Kepler-186f is too remote and its star too faint for current telescopes or the next generation of planned telescopes to determine its mass or whether it has an atmosphere. However, the discovery of Kepler-186f demonstrates conclusively that there are other Earth-sized planets in habitable zones.

Oh well....

What do you think Hubble is? Did you not see the video of what you are saying the future holds within it?

originally posted by: Elementalist
Basically this logic of seeking for another life-supporting planet is bias and flawed IMO.

"Look for planets that look like earth, hold water en mass, and carbon-5-based beings with semi or more intelligence.

Your looking for only what you belive humans can be supported, in terms of planetary environment.

God forbid their may be beings made of different biology systems and chemicals/elements. Who could survive or FLOURISH in enviromental conditions Man cannot.

That # is just scary and unbelievable!

Regardless of the flaw and bias search, it's great that earth is not the only planet like itself in yhe entire universe creation. But I had a feeling all along

Science freely admits that carbon-based life that requires water is NOT the only possible life out there...

However, with our limited methods for searching for life, the easiest life for us to actually find would be "life as we know it". That's because "Life as we don't know it" would be difficult to find, because we wouldn't know how to create the tests that would conclude "life as we don't know it" is present.

There are some interesting ideas for finding such "life as we don't know it". One example would be looking for dis-equilibriums of chemical compounds on other worlds that cannot be explained through non-life means. NASA's Chris McKay has suggested that certain dis-equilibriums of hydrogen and acetylene on Saturn's moon Titan may indicate the presence of methane-based life that is consuming that hydrogen and acetylene -- although he admits that there could be non-life processes as well that could explain it.

What is Consuming Hydrogen and Acetylene on Titan?

excerpt:

This lack of acetylene is important because that chemical would likely be the best energy source for a methane-based life on Titan, said Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., who proposed a set of conditions necessary for this kind of methane-based life on Titan in 2005. One interpretation of the acetylene data is that the hydrocarbon is being consumed as food. But McKay said the flow of hydrogen is even more critical because all of their proposed mechanisms involved the consumption of hydrogen.

"We suggested hydrogen consumption because it's the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth," McKay said. "If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth."

So science and NASA actually do think non-earth-like life could be out there. They just aren't sure if they would know it to see it.

originally posted by: greencmp

originally posted by: BigBrotherDarkness
a reply to: greencmp

Did it take into account dwarf planets? How many planets do you think our current solar system has? Avg. person would say 9 or 8... try again is what they should be told.

The Drake equation is concerned with the likelihood of human communication/interaction with intelligent life.

Even if they are close enough, are they now enough?

Thank you for dumbing it down research it more so you can smart it up