[Himmler]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4411865.stm

happy:

[Miscguy]

This isnt news... Fuck people have been saying this for YEARS now. Hell, the discovery channel used to do whole shows about the subject. Why "british scientist" are getting some sort of credit for this "discovery" is beyond me.

[Mr.Buttocks]

I bet those planets are populated by randy leprechauns with shamrock shaped phalluses.

[KTOG]

The Drake Equation

[Akuma]

I'm suprised the conservative christians haven't tried to cencor that yet.

[ninty]

Just because scientists think their out there, doesn't mean they are. I mean, earth could be the only planet like it in the whole universe. Thats probably less liklet than getting struck by lightning 68 times and winning the lottery in one day, but until you prove it...

The reason their getting credit is because before they could only find planets that were huge like Jupiter because they had to look at the wobble of the star. Only huge planets make the star visibly wobble to us.

Recently they actually saw a planet like earth, which is a big step from saying their out there.

Anyway, yeah there are probably tons of earth like planets within habitable zones of their stars, but they are so far away, we'll definitely never get there in our life times. The closest star from our own is 4 light years away! We can't even travel close to the speed of light. Even if we could do a 1/4 the speed of light that would take us 16 years to get there.

[eeves]

just a silly question....if there is another earth, would it be inhabited by homo sapiens? ed: eek:

[ninty]

Originally Posted by yves

just a silly question....if there is another earth, would it be inhabited by homo sapiens? ed: eek:

Aboslutley not, unless somehow we have colonized other planets and broken off contact sort of like in Battlestar Galactica.

All an Earth like planet means is it would be a planet made of rock, (not gas like the bigger planets like Jupiter and Saturn because you really aren't going to find life on huge gas giant planets) relativley the same size, orbiting a similar sized star in the habitable zone. The habitable zone is the area in which a planet orbits and water on its surface can stay in a liquid form. Get to close to the star and the water evaporates, get too far away and it freezes. So we're lucky to live where we are. To find another planet with life, it would have to orbit at a safe distance, because without water, not much is going to live. At least, thats what we can assume now. Perhaps other creatures can live in different environments that don't have water. Who knows.

With these characteristsics is it probably very likley that a planet like this would harbour life. This doens't mean they'll have people or apes walking around, it could be simple forms of bacteria or alge or things smaller than that.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that if a species has grown entirley independently from us as inhabitants of planet Earth, they will probably look nothing like anything we've ever seen. Almost every mammal has a face with eyes and a nose a mouth, and hands or fins etc. Don't get to cozy to this idea. Who says other beings have to have faces? Or hands or eyes? There are plenty of other ways to survive and adapt to an environment without these things. We took one course out of an infinite amount of possibilities in evolution. The chance an alien species would look anything like us would be astronomical. And throw all the preconceptions hollywood has goven you out the door. Giant bugs and such won't work. Ask a bioliogist, they'll tell you no way thats going to happen.

Finding intelligent life in the universe in my opinion will be extremly difficult. Intelligence, to many space scientists, is defined as being able to build a radio transmitter. We've only been able to do that for about 100 years, and we're already 99% of the way to destroying ourselves. 100 years isn't a lot of time to find someone out in the cosmos. If we were to come across another intelliegnt race, they would probably be millions of years older than us, and would have probablt stopped killing each other because they realized they wouldn;t last long if they did.

Thats my take on it anyway.

[Whatada]

+1 Ninty.


rock:


It would be redicaluss to say that somewhere in the universe, there isn't intelligent life. It's extremely egotistical. And like 90 said, it will probably be extremely difficult to find this life.

[ninty]

Yeah, I 100% believe there is other life out there. I actually believe there is a really good chance for life in our own solar system. There's a chance for microscopic life on Mars still, but I think the jackpot for life in the solar system is Europa, a moon of Jupiter. It’s covered with miles of ice, and below the ice is liquid water. I would be my life’s savings that there is some form of life in the seas of Europa.

I also believe there has been intelligences greater than our own, and there will be intelligences greater than our own in the future in the universe, however, realizing that the closest star is 4 light years away, distances to even the closest stars and planets are vastly enormous. These distances are insurmountable unless you can travel faster than the speed of light, which Einstein says is impossible and can be tested for quite easily, or you can somehow bend space and time. That is what has been dubbed a wormhole. If we wanted to ever map out our own galaxy traveling at the speed of light, it would take thousands of years. The Milky Way galaxy alone is anywhere from 90-150 thousands light years across. (Traveling at the speed of light, it would take 90,000 - 150,000 years to get from one side to the other) And that’s just one of billions of galaxies in the universe.

This leads me to the conclusion that actually physically meeting another species is probably very small at this moment unless they decide to visit us.

Another way would be transmitting signals such as radio frequencies and other electromagnetic frequencies, but again, these frequencies travel at the speed of light. To reach the closest star, it would take 4 years.

We've been broadcasting at high enough frequencies for about 60 years. Thus, if anyone is within 60 light years of us, they could potentially hear our TV and radio and things like that. However, as I said before, if the galaxy is 90-150 thousand light years across, and were only covering 60 years, that’s not very much.

Man I could go on forever about this stuff.

And oh yeah, +1 back atcha bub.

[eeves]

Originally Posted by ninty9

Aboslutley not, unless somehow we have colonized other planets and broken off contact

sounds like stargate .... biggrin:

[Unknown_Sniper]

I uh...umm...go 90 rock:
And I thought that recently they did find microscopic life on mars in like some ice sample

[Whatada]

[quote="Unknown_Sniper":5825e]I uh...umm...go 90 rock:
And I thought that recently they did find microscopic life on mars in like some ice sample[/quote:5825e]


Nope. Just a theory.

[ninty]

There was that time during bill clintons presidency where they thought they found something, however I don't think they could prove it.

Anyway, its been proven there was once water on mars, and with that i'm certain there would have been some form of life at one point or another. Just need to find the little guys in the sand now. They need samples brought back to earth, but that won't happen for a while.

Bush said NASA is supposed to go back to the moon by 2020 I beliee then MARS after that, so it'll probably be around 2030 or so if it happens at all.

[Whatada]

Originally Posted by ninty9

Bush said NASA is supposed to go back to the moon by 2020 I beliee then MARS after that, so it'll probably be around 2030 or so if it happens at all.

How the funking waggles is that his decision? oOo:


If it's out there, it can / will be found... At some point!





Procrastination man!!!1