Kepler Probe Begins To Find Exoplanets In Habitable Zone (And other cool cosmology stuff)

[bornagainathiest]

BAA, I read that the other day and thought of this thread. While those two planets are way too close to their star for any life to be there, it is an awesome discovery.

 

Agreed!

 

It won't be long (months perhaps) before the Goldilocks Planet is announced. Just the right size, in just the right place for there to be life on it. Keep watching this space! (Sorry about the pun.)

 

 

 

BAA.

[stryper]

 

Keep watching this space! (Sorry about the pun.)

 

 

 

BAA.

 

 

 

SUuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrreee you are...

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

also kinda shoots in the foot the whole Idea of a galaxy spanning empire. Tried that in SPORE once......waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy to much work.

Yeah... but there was a time when an empire the size of the Roman empire was too big, and many empires the size of modern iraq were once too big because they took too much work for people to rule. Also, unlike in video games, no nation is ever taken care of by just one person, there's always the counsel there. A galaxy spanning empire isn't impossible outright necessarily, its just such with what we know of.

[stryper]

NPR Science Friday talked with William Borucki about this today.

 

 

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201112231

[Droptail]

We can't even evolve beyond genocide of our own species,so would an advanced E.T. species willingly interact with such a violent and cruel organism.

 

We have a lot of growing up to do before we can hope for an interaction that will be obvious to us. Like the story of Japedo on the floor "I'm teaching the alphabet to the ants" Can ants appreciate/interpret the Hubble or the CERN supercollider,much less a flash card?

 

Advanced/intelligent extraterrestrials, I think, would be far more capable of harming us than us them if we had an encounter. Stephen Hawking talked about this once and said it would be akin to when Columbus and his soldiers landed in the Americas, bringing epidemics from the germs that indigenous Americans had never faced before along with the superior technologies that they were able to have thanks to circumstances of geography and local biology.

[HappyChef]

We can't even evolve beyond genocide of our own species,so would an advanced E.T. species willingly interact with such a violent and cruel organism.

 

We have a lot of growing up to do before we can hope for an interaction that will be obvious to us. Like the story of Japedo on the floor "I'm teaching the alphabet to the ants" Can ants appreciate/interpret the Hubble or the CERN supercollider,much less a flash card?

 

Advanced/intelligent extraterrestrials, I think, would be far more capable of harming us than us them if we had an encounter. Stephen Hawking talked about this once and said it would be akin to when Columbus and his soldiers landed in the Americas, bringing epidemics from the germs that indigenous Americans had never faced before along with the superior technologies that they were able to have thanks to circumstances of geography and local biology.

 

Sure,my point is who's to say contact hasn't already been made and we aren't advanced enough to have interpreted it?

[Droptail]

We can't even evolve beyond genocide of our own species,so would an advanced E.T. species willingly interact with such a violent and cruel organism.

 

We have a lot of growing up to do before we can hope for an interaction that will be obvious to us. Like the story of Japedo on the floor "I'm teaching the alphabet to the ants" Can ants appreciate/interpret the Hubble or the CERN supercollider,much less a flash card?

 

Advanced/intelligent extraterrestrials, I think, would be far more capable of harming us than us them if we had an encounter. Stephen Hawking talked about this once and said it would be akin to when Columbus and his soldiers landed in the Americas, bringing epidemics from the germs that indigenous Americans had never faced before along with the superior technologies that they were able to have thanks to circumstances of geography and local biology.

 

Sure,my point is who's to say contact hasn't already been made and we aren't advanced enough to have interpreted it?

 

Aw, I see. I misinterpreted your other post and focused more on that first sentence...

 

I'm intrigued by the possibility you raise. Obviously, we're going to have to profoundly expand the limits of our imagination and knowledge to begin understanding the permutations of forms that advanced life could take elsewhere. If only it were as easy as Contact.

[bornagainathiest]

We can't even evolve beyond genocide of our own species,so would an advanced E.T. species willingly interact with such a violent and cruel organism.

 

We have a lot of growing up to do before we can hope for an interaction that will be obvious to us. Like the story of Japedo on the floor "I'm teaching the alphabet to the ants" Can ants appreciate/interpret the Hubble or the CERN supercollider,much less a flash card?

 

Advanced/intelligent extraterrestrials, I think, would be far more capable of harming us than us them if we had an encounter. Stephen Hawking talked about this once and said it would be akin to when Columbus and his soldiers landed in the Americas, bringing epidemics from the germs that indigenous Americans had never faced before along with the superior technologies that they were able to have thanks to circumstances of geography and local biology.

 

Sure,my point is who's to say contact hasn't already been made and we aren't advanced enough to have interpreted it?

 

Aw, I see. I misinterpreted your other post and focused more on that first sentence...

 

I'm intrigued by the possibility you raise. Obviously, we're going to have to profoundly expand the limits of our imagination and knowledge to begin understanding the permutations of forms that advanced life could take elsewhere. If only it were as easy as Contact.

 

To HappyChef and Hokun...

 

On the subject of 'sufficient intelligence' to understand/interpret messages from more advanced alien cultures, I'm with Carl Sagan on this one.

 

He posited the idea that there are certain common concepts that will apply to ALL intelligences, no matter how different they are from us. Specifically, mathematics. Far from being a purely human construct, evidence has emerged that some animals understand certain mathematical concepts and use them to help survive. So, if there are evolutionary advantages in this on Earth, wouldn't that suggest there'd be similar advantages elsewhere in the universe? (If not, why not... I wonder?)

 

On a hypothetical Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star in the Andromeda galaxy (Messier 31), doesn't 1+1=2?

 

Isn't this true anywhere and anywhen in the universe?

 

Your thoughts, guys?

 

BAA.

[stryper]

If you accept that the universe is built off of music and math. Then there will be universal constants everywhere. Most likely one of both of those avenues would be a way to communicate with aliens a la Close encounters of a Third Kind. Or even contact.

 

however, I sense in your comment BAA the same thing I have mentioned before. The underlying assumption that they will be "like us". I would think the mathematical concept would be similar but communication would be tricky. Especially, if the alien resembled something like a quadrupedal squid.

 

However I could see communication being used by methods used in teaching children basic math. Using stones or dots or sticks or what have you, numbers could be represented visually to beings that have that as a primary sense. Similar techniques could be used for those that our sound based. Not sure how scent could be used, though.

 

Anyway just my thoughts.

[bornagainathiest]

If you accept that the universe is built off of music and math. Then there will be universal constants everywhere. Most likely one of both of those avenues would be a way to communicate with aliens a la Close encounters of a Third Kind. Or even contact.

 

however, I sense in your comment BAA the same thing I have mentioned before. The underlying assumption that they will be "like us". I would think the mathematical concept would be similar but communication would be tricky. Especially, if the alien resembled something like a quadrupedal squid.

 

However I could see communication being used by methods used in teaching children basic math. Using stones or dots or sticks or what have you, numbers could be represented visually to beings that have that as a primary sense. Similar techniques could be used for those that our sound based. Not sure how scent could be used, though.

 

Anyway just my thoughts.

 

Thanks for the input, Stryper!

 

I completely accept and agree with your point about the potential diversity of intelligent alien life.

 

It could be aquatic, airborne, subterranean, magma-dwelling or even space-borne. It need not be bilaterally symmetrical like us, but radially or spherically symemetrical, like a starfish or a sea urchin. It might not even have the need to develop any kind of technologies to interract with it's immediate environment. To explain, rather than interracting with their surroundings by using inanimate objects (e.g., chimps using sticks to probe ant nests for food, sea otters using stones to open abalones or humans using a plough in a field), intelligent aliens might be able to change their own bodies or modify their own life-energy fields to do so in ways that will surprise and/or amaze us.

 

However, I reckon that the bottom line for all life is it's ability to successfully take and use what it needs from the environment it lives in. Therefore, it will be necessary for said aliens to develop a working knowledge of how their environment functions. Humans have learnt how to use the land, sea and air for their own advantage. To be honest, I can't envisage any kind of intelligent alien life that doesn't interract with it's surroundings in some way.

 

Unless, of course, they've evolved beyond the need to do so?

Then we'd be in the same boat as Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Commander Koor, when they discovered the true nature of the apparently backward Organians. Remember that one?

Spock observed that we'd be like amoebas to them - with all trappings of the Organian peasant culture there, simply as easy reference points for us simpletons to relate to. Presumably, there'd be little point in them talking to us. We'd have so little in common it'd be an exercise in futility for both parties!

 

Going back to the above point about intelligent interraction with the environment, this is where I reckon math comes in.

One significant aspect of that understanding must be the ability to categorize and subdivide reality into various parts. This (a tree) is like that (another tree), but this other thing (a rock) is not like the first tree, nor the second tree. The logical outcome of this kind of analysis is an understanding of difference and similarity, which then leads to the conept of singularity (one tree), duality (two trees) of larger groupings and so on.

 

Therefore, I contend that it's not unreasonable for math to be a good starting point for future communication with aliens.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[bornagainathiest]

http://www.jpl.nasa....elease=2012-009

 

 

BAA.

[mymistake]

The last check I did on what we know about the Milky Way galaxy is that it contains something like 200 to 400 billion stars. Wikipedia says that the galaxy is estimated to have 50 billion planets, but that seems a bit low to me, and I would expect that number to go up as time passes and new ways of discovering planets are used.

 

Well, a lot of them got reclassified as dwarf planets along with Pluto.

[RankStranger]

When extraterrestrials show up here, they're gonna be jealous of the size, shape, and exquisite proportion of my head. I hope they're not too intimidated.

[bornagainathiest]

_{Not Kepler news, as such, but still interesting!}

 

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-010

 

So that's at least 100,000,000,000 planets in our galaxy and at least 1,500 within 50 light years of us.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[stryper]

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/13/145175261/kepler-telescope-spots-tiniest-exoplanets-yet

[badpuppy]

I hope I'm wrong. Hopefully as we learn more about physics and the universe we can finally look back at the light barrier the same way we look back at the sound barrier. For now, though, there isn't even a hint that this is possible, because if it were, then there would be others visiting us already and proving that it can be done.

 

But again, I hope I'm wrong.

 

 

There could be other reasons why no one visits use. We are essentially in hicksville in intersteller terms. To come out to where we are is like traveling from the Fertile Crescent to Pitcairn Island in the middle of the south Pacific.

 

First you'd have to have the technology.

Second, even if you did there is probably little here that can't more easily be obtained from sources closer to your home system.

Third, we are not a space faring race. So we would have little to offer one who was.

 

So really it would have to an intrepid explorer who would want to visit us to begin with.

 

 

Agreed. This opens up exciting ideas, though. In places that "aren't" hickville, is a Star-Wars-Like reality being lived out? That would be really cool. Even if it's not coming out to our Bubba Gump neck of the woods, still. Neat idea.

 

But I concur with all your points here. It just goes back to us thinking we are the center of the universe while simultaneously denying it. Do big NY City dwellers feel compelled to visit podunk towns in Mississippi? No. This doesn't mean people with the capability to visit podunk towns don't exist in NY City. They just don't WANT to visit podunk Mississippi. And if they did, the ppl in the hick town would likely have nothing of value to offer the people from the big city. (i.e. their understanding of nearly everything is way below the sophistication of the average citizen of a large metropolitan area.)

[badpuppy]

We can't even evolve beyond genocide of our own species,so would an advanced E.T. species willingly interact with such a violent and cruel organism.

 

We have a lot of growing up to do before we can hope for an interaction that will be obvious to us. Like the story of Japedo on the floor "I'm teaching the alphabet to the ants" Can ants appreciate/interpret the Hubble or the CERN supercollider,much less a flash card?

 

This is largely the way I see it. We like to think we are so advanced and nobody more advanced than us can really exist. On the matter of mathematical probabilities, while it isn't a given that other planets even with advanced life would have the type of evolution to give them tools and civilization, as VAST as the universe is, it seems to me, silly to assume we are the only ones who have evolved to this degree and in this type of direction.

 

I think any civilization that far away from us with sufficient technology to reach us would consider us and our cruelty and violence to be primitive and barbaric. I don't think it's logical to assume you acquire that much technology and keep your planet going without evolving a more peaceful consciousness. To sufficiently advanced aliens, we would be seen probably like WE see ancient Aztec human sacrifice.

 

Whether or not they would be interested in studying/observing, I highly doubt they would be interested in interacting. I know I wouldn't be. I can barely stand sharing a planet with all the violent/barbaric/cruel crap that exists here, and I'm a human being native to this planet.

[badpuppy]

We can't even evolve beyond genocide of our own species,so would an advanced E.T. species willingly interact with such a violent and cruel organism.

 

We have a lot of growing up to do before we can hope for an interaction that will be obvious to us. Like the story of Japedo on the floor "I'm teaching the alphabet to the ants" Can ants appreciate/interpret the Hubble or the CERN supercollider,much less a flash card?

 

Advanced/intelligent extraterrestrials, I think, would be far more capable of harming us than us them if we had an encounter. Stephen Hawking talked about this once and said it would be akin to when Columbus and his soldiers landed in the Americas, bringing epidemics from the germs that indigenous Americans had never faced before along with the superior technologies that they were able to have thanks to circumstances of geography and local biology.

 

Agreed. But just because someone is CAPABLE of harming us, doesn't mean they "want to". Anything that could get to us all the way out here in hicksville is "capable" of harming us. The fact that we continue to exist most likely means one of the following:

 

1. Peaceful beings who have no intention of harming us.

2. Beings who have no interest in us or anything on our puny planet.

3. We're too far out in hickville which makes the logistics of getting here either too hard or not worth the trouble.

4. No one else is quite to that evolutionary level yet.

 

(There are probably other possibilities as well, but IMO those are the most likely logical.)

 

However, on the point of danger, it actually doesn't follow that it wouldn't be dangerous for ET's to interact with us just because they would be able to destroy us so easily. I mean... I can crush a spider just by stepping on it, but it could bite me first. And some spiders are poisonous. It doesn't follow that a weaker/less technologically advanced being can never cause you harm. Also, I don't think it would be a matter of "fear" so much as just not wanting to interact with primative/cruel/violent beings. If I had some kind of technology that created a forcefield around me that protected me from any other sentient being, it would not follow that I would "want to" directly interact with primitive Aztecs.

 

We can also think about people who don't like children and don't want children. Sufficiently advanced ET's might see us as obnoxious as small children screaming in McDonald's. Not interacting with us doesn't mean they can't or that they are afraid to, or whatever. They may simply not "want to". I don't find that idea impossible to believe. I don't want to interact with most of the people here and I'm from here.

[Legion]

[stryper]

Okay not Kepler related but sitll pretty cool.

 

Mars Rover Turns 8 today. Apparently NASA expected to only last a year or two at the most. Guess the space program can build some pretty good shit when they are given the money..... :pokes Obama:

 

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2105371,00.html?xid=gonewsedit

 

Hubble lasted longer then expected and only got shut down because they decided to focus on Kepler instead.

 

Mars Rover lasted 8 times longer then expected.

 

Additional G2 Mars Rover do to arrive this summer with high hopes.

 

And Kepler is performing so well that it is making the news on a regular basis.

 

Hell Voyager is still sending back signals and very limited information to us.

 

NASA can do a hell of job when they put their mind to it.

[badpuppy]

That's so cool!! And YEAH... dude, we WENT TO THE MOON!

 

I still think Neil Armstrong should have stepped out and said: "Holy FUCK! I'm ON THE FUCKING MOON!!!" and then did the chicken dance. But it's still cool he went.

[stryper]

more kepler news

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-us-space-planetstre80p27w-20120126,0,2369579.story

 

Add 11 more to the total.

 

So far it seems most of the planets have been found very close to their stars. Which would makes sense given how the experiment is being done. I think it'll be most interesting when we get to 2013 -2014. Then some of these potential planets will have had multiple earth years to orbit and we should be able to detect them farther distances.

 

Still it is incredibly fascinating.

[Thought2Much]

more kepler news

 

http://www.chicagotr...0,2369579.story

 

Add 11 more to the total.

 

So far it seems most of the planets have been found very close to their stars. Which would makes sense given how the experiment is being done. I think it'll be most interesting when we get to 2013 -2014. Then some of these potential planets will have had multiple earth years to orbit and we should be able to detect them farther distances.

 

Still it is incredibly fascinating.

 

I agree that some really cool stuff is most likely going to be coming through when we are able to confirm some worlds in longer orbits. It's a great time for a guy like me who's interested in science to be alive.

[paul34]

...

[badpuppy]

I think any civilization that far away from us with sufficient technology to reach us would consider us and our cruelty and violence to be primitive and barbaric. I don't think it's logical to assume you acquire that much technology and keep your planet going without evolving a more peaceful consciousness. To sufficiently advanced aliens, we would be seen probably like WE see ancient Aztec human sacrifice.

 

 

Perhaps, but also, perhaps not. Imagine if Hitler or Stalin had succeeded in spreading their respective visions around the world. Especially in the case of the Nazis. What if there was some powerful civilization out there that was united, but under the banner of military conquest and totalitarinism rather than freedom and fundamental rights? The Nazis did some pretty amazing science. Some of their engineering and scientific accomplishments are still quite impressive even today.

 

The problem with that is that totalitarianism always fails eventually. Maybe an alien civilization would be different enough from human beings to make it work, but for us, we always fight for freedom in the end. But, it's all speculation so of course you could be right. Though I do think if such an advanced civilization existed who could actually come here who was actually interested in being here, we would not be having this conversation because they would have subjugated us all or killed us. So, another point for "peaceful or uninterested" IMO.