   | |  | | ![]()  | Article said: | The Dwarf Carried Other Worlds Too!
Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, an exoplanet with a radius only 50% larger than the Earth and capable of having liquid water. Using the ESO 3.6-m telescope, a team of Swiss, French and Portuguese scientists discovered a super-Earth about 5 times the mass of the Earth that orbits a red dwarf, already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet. The astronomers have also strong evidence for the presence of a third planet with a mass about 8 Earth masses. |
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2007/pr-22-07.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/04/24/huge-news-first-possibly-earthlike-extrasolar-planet-found
Now, this doesn't mean it has life, but given the size and distance from the home star (A red dwarf, which is smaller and cooler than our sun), there is a possiblity of liquid water. Liquid water or not, this is a very interesting find and it brings us one step closer to finding life. | |  | |  |
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| | | | ![]() I wonder what other interesting things orbit Gliese 581...three exoplanets and one of them possibly being Earth-like! It can only get better  | | | | |
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| | | | ![]() It also gives SETI a place to point their search. They've scanned that system before, but now that we know there is a smaller planet there that could have life, they can search over a wider spectrum of radio, searching in ways they previously didn't. If there is something intelligent there and they are broadcasting, then it won't be long until we find something. Red dwarfs are also good for life in the sense that they live a long time. There is a good chance that that star will still be around when ours dies.
Edit: Back to SETI, if someone does live there, 20 light years isn't really that far for communication. Sure, it would take 20 years to send a message, and then another 20 to get one back, but who knows, maybe in the 40 years it takes to finish saying hello, one side or the other will end up figuring out how to talk faster. | | | | |
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| written by Pomelos on Apr 25, 2007 09:36 |
 | |  | | ![]() Why, oh, why would you want such a planet to harbour life, when we don't know what life is, and how often it happens? We're not even close to knowing how life starts, or whether it's a common thing or our planet is a one-shot case! And talking about intelligence of extra-terrestrial living things is even more far-fetched!  | |  | |  |
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 | |  | | ![]()  | Pomelos said: | | Why, oh, why would you want such a planet to harbour life, when we don't know what life is, and how often it happens? |
Pomelos, I don't mean to be an arse or anything, but could you please stop fishing? Seriously, it's getting old. Heck it was old years ago. But fine, I'll respond:
To understand life, we must study life, wherever, whenever and however it takes form. After all, just saying "we will never understand life, so why bother?" is not exactly scientific. If you don't want to learn about the potentials that may exist, then you could always close your eyes, cover your ears, and dig a big hole in the ground. Then you can sit there and contemplate the mysteries and wonders of the universe that you may never understand, because you don't even bother to try. | |  | |  |
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 | |  | | It seems to me that there is more than one angle to this:
1) Does the planet bear life? The signs look good from this distance, but we can't tell for sure. It's going to take a lot of effort, but if we can get a definite answer, that'll be a major step forward.
2) Does the planet bear INTELLIGENT life? This is the SETI angle outlined above.
3) Is the planet habitable by terrestrial life? This, to me, is the £64,000,000 question. If yes, then surely it would be worth going there? | |  | |  |
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 | |  | | ![]() The answer to all of those questions: ask again in a decade or so. As it is, they don't even know if the planet has an atmosphere. All that they do know is that it is located the right distance from its star and has the right mass to potentially support liquid water. That's pretty much it - yet another small step in the right direction. | |  | |  |
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| written by Dumbum on Apr 25, 2007 17:44 |
 | |  | | ![]() If any other planet has water and life wouldn't mean we could go and live there anyway, even if we had the technology to go there. The planet would likely harbour diseases that we don't have any resistence against, at all.
Just like in the movie War of The Worlds  | |  | |  |
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| | | | ![]() | Dumbum said: | The planet would likely harbour diseases that we don't have any resistence against, at all.
Just like in the movie War of The Worlds |
That isn't even possible. Unless the life on that planet happened to come from Earth, or from there to Earth through Panspermia then thats nearly impossible. The life from Earth and there wouldn't be compatable with each other. It would probably take a few thousand years or so for life to start evolving to each others presence there for us to start getting sick from diseases on that planet. | | | | |
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| written by Pomelos on Apr 26, 2007 07:19 |
| | | | ![]() | Stargazer said: | Pomelos, I don't mean to be an arse or anything, but could you please stop fishing? Seriously, it's getting old. Heck it was old years ago. But fine, I'll respond:
(follows a text about how we should study life, for great justice and so on.) |
I might be wrong, but I doubt there is any scientific publication dealing with life found on exoplanets. Hence my rant. That life thing is just tabloid science. | | | | |
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| | | | ![]() Whats tabloid about life on other planets? I mean, sure we haven't found any, but come on. It's widely accepted that the idea of the human race being the only intelligent species, with Earth being the only planet with life is just not true. Even the church is starting to accept this. Just because we haven't found it, doesn't mean it isn't there. In a few hundred years people are going to look back and laugh at us for thinking we are all there is, just like we look back and laugh at people who thought the world was flat and that Earth was the center of the solar system. | | | | |
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| written by Pomelos on Apr 26, 2007 11:21 |
| | | | ![]() | Raptorjedi said: | | It's widely accepted that the idea of the human race being the only intelligent species, with Earth being the only planet with life is just not true. |
That's faith, not science. Right now, there's no scientific fact about ET life, whether for or against.
Just because we haven't found it, doesn't mean it is there.
When there is some proof there is life on other planet (or not), I'll say it's not tabloid. In the meanwhile, a valid scientific position is not to say anything about it.
I 'm not stupid or closed-minded, there. I have accepted the idea of life elsewhere. I'm juste trying to sort what's Science and what's not. Right now, extraterrestrial life is not. You could say whatever pleases you, that life must exist elsewhere, that the universe is too big, that people will laugh at us in the future, it won't make the subject closer to science. Ok, it's pre-science. What we lack is just a good definition of what life is and experimental data (I'm assuming you all know what Science is about, don't you). Come on, we're not even sure if it's probable, or even possible (your wanting to have life on other planets or your acceptance of the likeliness of it has little to do with it). | | | | |
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| | | | ![]() I'm gonna admit Pomelos, right now you have me kinda confused. Maybe it's because it's so early, but you saying what the OTHER side says while saying you accept the idea is just boggling my mind a little Most of the things you have said I expect to hear from people who say Aliens don't exist at all and that I'm an idiot for saying otherwise. (Not said in those exact words, but I have met someone who thought that ) | | | | |
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| written by Naavis on Apr 26, 2007 14:03 |
| | | | ![]() Pom is right, in a way. Right now study of extraterrestrial life can't be considered much of a science, since we haven't found anything to study yet. It's merely speculation, or pre-science, as Pom worded it. | | | | |
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| | | | ![]() | Pomelos said: | | I might be wrong, but I doubt there is any scientific publication dealing with life found on exoplanets. Hence my rant. That life thing is just tabloid science. |
This is what I wish you had said to start with. The way you worded it, to me it sounded like you were saying "why care? We will never understand life anyway even if its there". But now that you have clarified what you actually meant, I agree, to a degree. We don't know that ET exists, but I still say that is no reason to dismiss the potential of its existence. Relative to us, ET neither exists or don't, it is, naturally, in the grey zone of unrealized potential.
| Pomelos said: | | What we lack is just a good definition of what life is and experimental data (I'm assuming you all know what Science is about, don't you). |
That's one of the reasons SETI and astrobiologists are searching: if we can prove that life exists elsewhere, it may help in understanding what life is in the first place. They are trying to gather whatever data they can find from what we have, and so there is no reason to either deny or accept anything at this time. | | | | |
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