new planets found

[Lurker]

If there is some sort of life, it probably won't be human, it could be something that doesn't require oxygen to breathe, they could have 4 arms? Or could be little or big aliens, who can talk and build things like us. Or it could be similar to us. With another Sun pointing at their planets.

I'm sure we'll find out eventually, but chances are we won't be around when something is found.

The comments on here are very interesting.

[JB80]

http://www.planethunters.org/is an interesting site.

You can scan Keplers data yourself.

[beamish]

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.

I personally suspect this is far more likely to be the case, so we are effectively alone !

[perrin6]

As they were detected when they dimmed their star during transit, could these 'planets' actually be huge alien solar-cell arrays for producing power ?

[ixalon]

I'm not sure how "good" the science is (it admits it is educated guesswork) but http://www.evolutionofdna.com is a really digestible read about a possible way primordial self-replicating molecules could have developed to such a state that successful traits can be passed down to future generations. Once evolution kicks in, if they can avoid complete extinction, it's only a matter of time, which there's been plenty of

Basically, it takes a lot of luck and far more conditions being just right than having liquid water in abundance (as far as I can tell their story would work with certain other liquids but you'd be talking about the basic building blocks being different from what we currently consider organic compounds). At these early stages it all sounds extremely fragile.

Is fun to wonder though!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I'm not sure how "good" the science is (it admits it is educated guesswork) but Evolution of DNA is a really digestible read about a possible way primordial self-replicating molecules could have developed to such a state that successful traits can be passed down to future generations. Once evolution kicks in, if they can avoid complete extinction, it's only a matter of time, which there's been plenty of

Basically, it takes a lot of luck and far more conditions being just right than having liquid water in abundance (as far as I can tell their story would work with certain other liquids but you'd be talking about the basic building blocks being different from what we currently consider organic compounds). At these early stages it all sounds extremely fragile.

Is fun to wonder though!

I rather like Stuart Kaufman's theory of the origin of life, which does not require DNA but only catalysis. If a soup of sufficient chemical diversity is present, after a given amount of time an autocatalytic cycle appears. This is a sequence of reactions which produces the chemicals needed for each of the reactions in the cycle. This is essentially a metabolism, without any genetic component. It can reproduce in a crude way.

[John S]

What perplexes me is saying life elsewhere is unlikely when the nearest star system at 4.2 light years Alpha Beta and Proxima Cerntauri is the most modeled system for binary planetary formation. Also Alpha Centauri is a G2 star the same as the sun same elements same everything almost.

There are no pertubations by gas giants as this has been stripped away by the binary system but there could well be planets fron half to twice the diameter of earth so unobservable at present.

So I think that this alone raises the liklehood of life elsewhere and its on our doorstep astronomically speaking.

John.