NASA's Deep Space Camera Locates Host of 'Earths'

this is great!!! after we destroy this one, we can migrate to those other ones and destroy it too!! theres enough planets out there for all of us!! i am soooo getting my own planet i am sooo gonna.

reply to post by Portugoal


OK, I know this is inappropriate of me to say, since I haven't read the previous 5 pages (I really shouldn't post without taking the time to see if this has already been said), but this is really jumping the gun.

The key word is "suspected". All they have done so far is find 700 anomolies that warrant further study. As the article says "NASA so far formally announced only five new exoplanets -- those outside our solar system -- from the mission."

This isn't to say the report will ultimately be false, but it is too soon to be excited by anything.

reply to post by Come Clean


rofl 4 scientists from SETI are on the kepler team. The small planets they found will be around M stars if theyre in the HZ, if theyre around G type stars they will be like mercury roasty toasty. M stars are problematic for complex life wouldnt fancy trying to build a house there put it that way

[edit on 26-7-2010 by yeti101]

that's great news but i think once we have better space travel will just take over those planets or try to even if they had life on them humans are greedy races of beings

Our Earth is so small, even in our solar system and just a very small rock in our Galaxy. And our galaxy is so, so tiny compared to the size of the Universe.
Our technology is in its infancy right now. Maybe in another 100 yrs. we will be in preschool. But until our technology gets to the point where we can definitely say we are not alone..we just assume we are and since distance is a huge factor,
we have no way of knowing.
But let's say that we have been visited by another species. Would you want to come down to Earth and give us some very advanced technology! Look at what is happening on Earth every second of the day. Violence of all kinds abound. We are a very aggressive species. Some would say murderous. Now...would you really want to give us high tech knowledge and turn us loose on the Universe?? All any advanced intelligent species would have to do is observe our behavior for one day and the answer would be No!
Our technology is advancing at a faster rate than our compassion for our concern for the planet and its people. Right now it is still bang, bang, pow, pow.
A friend of mine put it this way.....I think we humans have been put on Earth as a Penal Colony. Way out on the arm of our Galaxy, far away from any planets where we can not harm anyone else. We are parasitic and destructive and that is just not acceptable for a space faring race. But at least we have a beautiful planet!!

Humans arent going to try to take over any planet. We cant even setup a base on the moon. Have you seen whats on the other side also? life.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by ge0089]

reply to post by franspeakfree


Star!!! Yuo said its best....A few months ago, NASA spoke about discovering a parrallel universe and coupled with this, I believe we are being primed for disclosure, even though some may disagree. Discolusre is not going to be this week or even this month;

what is happening is that we are slowly being conditioned to thinking about life (us living somewhere else and other lifeforms) outside Planet Earth.

I have noticed that alot of people are posting things along the lines of "the U.S. will invade the first planet that has oil" and the like. Hydrocarbons are actually quite common in our own solar system. A few moons around Jupiter and Saturn have vast methane and other natural gasses that can be used as fuel. The problem is that transporting them to earth would cost more then it would be worth, and the energy expended by getting there and back would be more then what you would get out of the hydrocarbon itself.

In a word, do a little reserch before you go off on some 'America the Empire' rant or tangant. That said I would be the first to sign up to go off and start a human civilization on another planet. I would like to take a moment to say how it is going to happen.


-Ships will be build in orbit: It would be less costly and more efficent to produce interstellar, human habitable, industrial equiped ships in orbit. If you could snag some astroids and used nuclear fuel you would have to launch only about 30% of the total materials used into space. Most of the cost (in energy, not money) of launching a rocket turns out to be fuel, and the bigger the mass of the ship the more fuel you need. You need (fuel to lift the mass of the ship) + (fuel to lift the mass of the fuel) = (total fuel required)

- A large amount of genetically diverse humans will be required: This is obvious. The trip at best will take hundreds of years and it would be foolish to think that humans will not be human. So after you account of mental break downs from the first and last ship bound generations (ie the people who left earth never to return, and the people who will be on board when they reach the proposed colony planet), illness, accidents, murder and other causes of death, you should hope to have 30% of the original population left on the ship to safely reproduce dirt side. By this calculation I would suggest that the ship have an initial manning of 25000 people. This may sound like a lot, but if you want to be serious about getting the human race out into the cosmos, you have to think big.

-Food and energy considerations: Food will not be the hardest part. If people can grow pot in underground box cars in the wilderness of canada, I think we can figure out how to grow food in a space ship. The primary problem will be the lack of gravity, but this can be solved by putting the ship into a spin when in interstellar space. Only stopping the spin when you have to land the ship(if you have to land it). You could fertillized the plants if you recycled the dead and composted everything, from eeg shells to human waste to the remains of animals and plants that cannot be eaten. I do suggest that the settlers take a few species of animals for food and to fill in the gaps in the food chain.
Energy will be the biggest problem. Once you get too far away from the sun, like past the astroid belt, solar power is not an option. Grav slingshot will only get you so fast, and a rocket has the problem of mass and running out of fuel quickly. They will most likely have to come up with a way to fuse hydrogen. (I never said we could do this tommorow)

Other issues: The reason the ship would have to be build in orbit is that the people who will live and die on the ship will need more room then conventional ship building allows. The people will need vast amounts of space to grow food, live, store supplies, and archives and factory units so that they can build things out of local materials. Where as people born into a spartan life style can cope well with it, the first people will be the hardest to cope. You need to make sure that they want to keep going, produce children and ration the supplies for the full trip. You also want to make sure that the people first selected are able to develop and maintain skills and equipment that will aid in survival. For example, you would want functional mechanics bay so that when they hit the dirt they can build and maintain anything they need for life on the planet. You would also need to keep in mind that the planed may need to tweeking to make it habitable for human life. As much as some may not like it, systems should be in place to seed the host planet with plants and animals that humans would be able to use. Plans should also be made to bring key parts of the transport ship for use on the ground as a base. You most likely not be able to shuttle things back and forth due to lift off fuel requirements, so it would be better if the ship was able to break apart and land in parts to be used a green houses and other functions until local materials could be found and exploited for use in construction and food production. Once basic needs of food (not just to sustain, but to grow a population) and shelter are met, the colony can start to put energy in expantion and maybe making meaningful contact with Earth to say they made it. I would say the whole undertaking is somewhere at about 100 years aways in technological ability and the whole mission from ship design to colonly starting would take nearly 1000 years.

I am happy to explain any of my reasoning to anyone, but I feel that the Kepler space proble is a huge and meaningful step off of this planet and on to another. I think that when, not if but when we take to the stars it will be for the pure joy of going where humans have never been, just to go. Then after the brave go, every one else will go for the three G's, Gold, Glory and God.

Sorry for the wall of text and I will edit this when I get home for spelling and other errors. Sorry for high jacking your thread OP, great post, S&F

Originally posted by grimreaper797

Originally posted by THE_PROFESSIONAL

I never mentioned that the earth is the center of the universe. All evidence is pointing to the fact that there is no intelligent life out there.

People like you baffle me. After viewing all those factors, and seeing how ridiculously large our galaxy is, you still want to say we are the only intelligent life? There are more stars in the universe then there are grains of sand on every beach in the world.

I see what you are saying -- but what if the chances of life occurring in the universe are not one chance in 10^12, but actually more like one chance in 10^30?

Keep in mind, one chance in 10^30 is the same general chances of winning the lottery five times in a row.

www.savingadvice.com...

The number 10^30 is the number one, followed by thirty zeros. It is the number 10 multiplied by itself 30 times. It is the probability of 30 things occurring, where each independent probability of occurrence is one chance in 10.

If life requires 30 different things, where the chances of each thing occurring is 1 chance in 10, then the total probability of life occurring is 1 in 10^30, which is an awfully small probability.

In fact 10^30 about the same as the number of grains of sand in the ocean, at least according to this website:

boards.straightdope.com...

I would not dismiss the possibility that life exists only one place in the universe, especially intelligent life like us. It is a reasonable argument, and I would not get all indignant and defensive about it.

Originally posted by RockCreekMan
Something to ponder. I have always been fascinated by all of the conspiracies surrounding aliens, UFO's and our government - as most of the ATS family is too! Upon reading this article about NASA and all the new planets they are discovering and all the money they are putting into these discoveries, does anyone else begin to doubt these theories of aliens and the theories that NASA and our government have been covering up Alien existence for many years.

I mean...if this superior and much more advanced alien race have been in contact for years with our government and NASA shouldn't we expect that the aliens have informed them about the universe and everything that's out there. If these aliens are coming from far off planets with much more superior technologic advancements then wouldn't one believe that the aliens could just tell top NASA and government officials what all is out in space or more importantly show them?

Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that if Aliens have been in contact for so many years with Government and NASA then why would we spend billions of dollars making spacecraft to take pictures of far off planets when these Alien friends of ours could show us pictures or even take us there. Seems strange. Curious to know your thoughts friends.

I would speculate that the reason is because the "illusion" is that important and the "knowledge" (of what is actually going on and what our history really is) of where we came from is what will destroy that illusion.

Its alot harder to manipulate people in your favor/direction when they are as informed as you are. When you dont have the information to make educated decisions on your own for yourself...well then, someone needs to do that for you, and well they are more than willing to be that "someone".

[edit on 26-7-2010 by Sly1one]

Originally posted by Axial Leader

Originally posted by grimreaper797

Originally posted by THE_PROFESSIONAL

I never mentioned that the earth is the center of the universe. All evidence is pointing to the fact that there is no intelligent life out there.

People like you baffle me. After viewing all those factors, and seeing how ridiculously large our galaxy is, you still want to say we are the only intelligent life? There are more stars in the universe then there are grains of sand on every beach in the world.

I see what you are saying -- but what if the chances of life occurring in the universe are not one chance in 10^12, but actually more like one chance in 10^30?

The chances could be 1 in 10! They are all guesses. Until we start to detect what is on the surface of planets orbiting stars we cannot make any educated projections. They are all pure speculation. That said the first 1 million stars could yield nothing and then the next has an industrial revolution era civilisation. All of a sudden that one in million and one would have the universe teeming with life and yet so far apart we might as well be alone........unless FTLT is developed.

I have NO doubts there is life out there. Im looking forward to the day we find something or they make their presence known to us. I dont think that day is too far off. Maybe that would start a change for the better. Stay tuned Im sure more is coming.

Originally posted by Obinhi
I have noticed that alot of people are posting things along the lines of "the U.S. will invade the first planet that has oil" and the like.
........
In a word, do a little reserch before you go off on some 'America the Empire' rant or tangant.

They are not being serious! It is a bit of humour, or even humor!

Try not to take that sort of comment too seriously!

Edit to say - of course that is what will happen

[edit on 26/7/2010 by PuterMan]

Not to go off topic, but I take it that the belief in the construction and innovation of the pyramids in egypt were entirely by humans must run high in this thread. (although i've not bother to do enough research myself)

It would be awesome if we could get even close to 1/4 lightspeed, just to make our way out there. But no, we gotta rape and murder each other.

reply to post by Portugoal

Cheers for the link.
This is awesome. Hopefully we find some planets we can expand to, once we have the technology.

Score two for humans! woohoo!
Some day NASA will cure our ignorance of the universe.

great article, thanks for sharing

reply to post by brutalsun

It would be awesome if we could get even close to 1/4 lightspeed...

I don't have the math skills necessary to figure this out exactly, but IF we solved the technology problem (invented a propulsion system, and a spacecraft that had sufficient life support capability) AND this spacecraft could merely accelerate at one-G, it will reach pretty fast relativistic speeds sooner than one would think.

Carl Sagan (in his book "Cosmos") I believe said that (if you ignore the speed of light as a restriction) a constant one-G acceleration would coss the distance of the Galaxy (100,000 LY) in about 50 years, earth reference time.

It's a bit like the "double your penny" concept --- the acceleration continues to accumulate.

BUT, of course....in reality, in "normal" space, 1/4c is more reasonable...although, alas, not possible with current technology and knowledge. AND, I have no idea how much relativistic benefit there'd be, for the occupants, at that velocity.

I found this website....maybe someone who wants can check the equations, and plug in some numbers to solve this question?

www.projectrho.com...

reply to post by weedwhacker

I think bending space to travel vast distances is the way to go, not propulsion.

reply to post by pscysm


Yeah....extremely high velocities have an added difficulty --- debris.

Even a few molecules, if the space is as "empty" as a couple of molecules in a cubic kilometer, it will STILL be an incredible danger, unless there's some sort of protection (Shields).

No, "Einsteinian" motion through "normal" space, at relativistic velocities, isn't likely to be a practical option......

....new concepts and discoveries in the basics, and fabric, of physics and cosmology, are required.