new planets found

[Lurker]

I just watched the news and it said kepler has found 500 new planets and there could be 1,000 planets. Thought i'll give the heads up incase people didn't know about it.

Does anyone believe there is life on another planet? Possibility so far away from Earth. In another Milky way perhaps?

I believe there is, Because we're all living in this Earth. I think the other Earth is run by someone else.

[yoda]

you woud have to be nieve to think we are the only life that has evolved.

[nicnac]

there has got to be something else somewhere, space is too vast to say we are the only ones.

i think that we would most likley be the only ones in the universe like us as i dont think the chances are good that there would be a carbon copy of Earth...which is good cos that means there is no Ming the merciless out there

[keef_uk]

Regardless of what you believe, the shear numbers involved in space would dictate that some form of life IS out there.

[Tantalus]

So far, Kepler has found 1235 possible planets!, including a planetary system of 6 planets orbiting a star 2,000 ly from earth - the largest system found to date.

These planets are in addition to the 500-or-so already found. I don't know how long it'll be until these planetary candidates are confirmed, but it's still an amazing number.

[Lowstar]

The UFO people who draw the crop circles are visitors.....they keep trying to tell me on YouTube. but i`m not buying it

[Rusty Strings]

The arguements against life are falling away all the time. Before the first exoplanet was found, the naysayers had lack of evidence on their side. First exoplanet found and they then point out that it's not the right kind of planet. We now have candidates for a rocky planet being found.

The sceptics are running out of excuses

[mindburner]

pretty cool. I just watched the original BBC horizon TV program called 'planet hunters'. It shows how the first planets were found. The recent news shows how far we have come

[Ags]

There might be even life elsewhere in our own solar system - on Mars or Europa for example.

But even if there is life in every planetary system, life is still rare, if you think of the vast empty stretches of space.

[ahxnccj]

no one know exactly how many planets are their in this universe. i have searched on google for your answer and i find:

"Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology who announced today the discovery of a new planet in the outer solar system. The planet, which hasn't been officially named yet, was found by Brown and colleagues using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego."

if you want to read about it more follow this link http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/29jul_planetx/

[Neilius]

I have often wondered since they first found an exoplanet back in the mid 90's why they don't send up an array of space telescopes, say 100 km apart from each other, and use them as a huge 100km wide aperture telescope. Cost, I know. But it'd be great wouldn't it?

[stolenfeather]

Is there life on other planets? I guess that would depend on your definition of life right. There is life here on earth in areas where scientists once deemed it impossible. Life in the coldest ice of Antarctica or the deepest oceans? If life, in any way shape or form exists there why not other planets.

The verdict on Europa has not been made yet. Could life be closer to home than we realize?

Isabelle

[Space Oddity6]

I can only echo what others have said previously, space is just too vast, incomprehensively so, for there not to be ANYTHING out there. I refuse to believe that.

Saying that, surely we're in a situation where we can categorically be 99% sure there is other life out there, but also 99% sure there isn't.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have often wondered since they first found an exoplanet back in the mid 90's why they don't send up an array of space telescopes, say 100 km apart from each other, and use them as a huge 100km wide aperture telescope. Cost, I know. But it'd be great wouldn't it?

In the radio wavelengths this is being done routinely. However, an optical synthesis telescope or very long baseline interferometer is much more difficult to construct. Apart from everything else, the seeing correction would be a nightmare.

I myself am quite happy to assume there is life out there, but whether or not we will find anytime soon it is another matter, given the vastness of space.

[FraserClarke]

I have often wondered since they first found an exoplanet back in the mid 90's why they don't send up an array of space telescopes, say 100 km apart from each other, and use them as a huge 100km wide aperture telescope. Cost, I know. But it'd be great wouldn't it?

If you've got 10 billion or so, there are plans you could start funding tomorrow

There were/are several projects along this line (search NASA-TPF and ESA-DARWIN), but they are to my knowledge either dead or permanently frozen at the minute. The concept studies for these showed how hard this is to do, and how expensive it is. No doubt they'll be realised at some point (or something similar), but it will be a few years yet before we get the funding. The key thing is, with missions like Kepler, to prove that the targets are out there to try and observe. That infinitely strengthens the case for building the next generation of instrument to go and get direct images/spectra.

[mindburner]

I think the discovery of life on another planet will be one of the greatest discoveries ever. Even if the life is single celled. It will show that maybe us humans are not that special after all.

[Jimmy Stix]

I think the discovery of life on another planet will be one of the greatest discoveries ever. Even if the life is single celled. It will show that maybe us humans are not that special after all.

As individuals we are capable of being special and achieving great things whether alone or as part of a larger group. As a species generally we are pretty awful and there are times when I am not at all proud of the human race.

[Lurker]

Don't think there is life in this universe ( Apart from us ).

But I do think there is life in another universe. Maybe million of years away. Where no telescope can see/reach.

[AlexB]

I think a lot of naysayers look at the unique (or fiddly as unique is 'probably' not true) conditions that we have on Earth with the moon doing it's bit and the core generating a strong magnetic field that protects at this close distance from the sun where we can safely reap the benefits of warmth.

You could look at all that information and think... this is a pretty unique situation for life to evolve in... but as we can see on our own planet, life can exist in the most inhospitable places to humans. So the possibilities of life existing in other places is definitely perceivable and I'm interested to see what information comes out of missions to Europa and Enceladus.

[G2EWS]

Hi Lurker,

We would have to be fairly pig headed to believe we are the only life form in the far reaches of space.

I was watching pod casts of Hubble exploits in the early hours of this morning and feeling very small!

Best regards

Chris

[Alkaid]

Here's my take on this. I absolutely believe that there is life elsewhere within the universe. The numbers speak for themselves, 10 to the power 10 stars in our galaxy, 10 to the 10 galaxies in the universe. For our star to be the only one with a planet which is at the just the right distance for temperature and has water and oxygen in abundence, if our Sun / Earth system is the only system in the entire universe with life then the odds of this being true are:

10 to the 10 multiplied by 10 to the 10.

Or 1000000000000000000000 : 1

So the odds of us being alone are rather remote.

However, by life I am talking about microbes, organisms etc.

But if there was intelligent life out there, the sheer vastness of space means that we will probably never ever make contact. Why?

The human race as we know it (Cro-Magnon man) has been around for about 10,000 years. Our less intelligent ancestors go back perhaps 200,000 years. Even if we send signals to our closest galaxy, (M31 Andromeda I think) it will be 2.2 million years before the signals get there and the same time for a supposed intelligent being to return the favour. And in that time scale, the human race might have evolved again into something else or be no more. So although I believe that we are not alone in the universe, I don't believe that we will discover forms of life outside of our own solar system, just because the distances in space are far too great.

Europa is the best bet.

My fingers hurt now so going to stop typing.

[iamjulian]

Make sure you read about the fermi paradox if you are interested in this.

I am reading a good book at the moment called "Lonely Planets".

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The Fermi paradox states that if interstellar travel, AND colonization of other planets is possible, AND intelligent life capable of doing both evolved before us, we should see a lot of space travellers, because in an astronomically very short time (order of a million years tops) the entire galaxy should have been colonized. However, we see none, which is at odds with the assumption that the sun is a run-of-the-mill star, and earth-like planets are common, and therefore life is common, and therefore intelligent life should be common (as according to Drake's equation).

There are a few ways out of the paradox:

1. We just happen to be the first

2. Conditions for complex life are far more rare than assumed (life has had some narrow escapes on Earth during mass-extinctions)

3. Interstellar travel is not possible (let alone intergallactic).

The first two (which are not mutually exclusive) seem more likely. Even though planets abound, we really cannot put any numbers on the different probabilities in Drakes equation.

[keef_uk]

you also have to take into account the time factor - the universe is so old that life could have come and gone many times. and who is to say how we measure life? does it have to be biological identical to how we see it?

[AlexB]

I think the colonisation point is highly subjective. This assumes all civilisations will unlock the ability to travel at faster than light speeds (somehow.) Basically is we're all stuck at sub-light speed, then no-one is colonising anywhere ... realistically.

The other consideration is that with such a hazard filled universe, all capable civilisations would have to be lucky enough to escape cataclysms or develop technology in time to survive/prevent them.

One could say "there's no smoke without fire" with respect to little green men sightings, so if we assume 1:1000 UFO reports are possibly real, then some civilisation(s) have developed the technology I spoke of earlier. Therefore, with that assumption, it is possible and we need to work hard to unlock the answers. Unfortunately, there's a good chance all the UFO stuff is a load of tosh and there is not one iota of real evidence.

Anyhow, this actually digresses from the notion there is intelligent life out there... there probably is, just that they haven't developed the right technology yet.