New Mars Forums

Yang Liwei Rocket

Member

Registered: 2004-03-03

Posts: 993

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

news on those planets

[http://physicsweb.org/article/world/14/1/7/1]http://physicsweb.org/article/world/14/1/7/1

[http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … _vega.html]http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … _vega.html

51 Pegasi b, Tau Bootes system, 70 Virginis b, "hot-jupiter" in Delphinus, Bellerophon, Rho Coronae Borealis b, Goldilocks, iota Horologii b, PSR 1257 pulsar planet, Epsilon Eridani planet, 55 Cancri b & c  planets, Gliese gas planet,  child of aldebaran, Upsilon Andromedae b.

[http://www.astro.psu.edu./users/jian/projects.htm#project10]http://www.astro.psu.edu./users/jian/projects.htm#project10
[http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current … _538_1.asp]http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current … _538_1.asp

[http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMR96X … dex_0.html]http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMR96X … dex_0.html

"Extrasolar" planets are familiar, but this one's orbit is promising. Its wide path hints that its star, 55 Cancri, might also harbor a Goldilocks planet: one whose size, temperature and composition are all just right for life. Current science spots only planets so massive they tug stars into a telltale "wobble." "You could put an Earth around 55 Cancri and we wouldn't know it was there," says Geoff Marcy, a planet hunter at UC, Berkeley.
?Adam Rogers, "Planets for the Finding," Newsweek, June 24, 2002

[http://www.glyphweb.com/esky/default.ht … efault.htm]http://www.glyphweb.com/esky....tm?http

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'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )

SRAM

Banned

From: Flawda USA

Registered: 2006-08-10

Posts: 40

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

We exist. Therefore, other species, not of our planet, also exist. Probably, there are also space-borne entities. After all... I seem to remember HUBBLE discovering organic matter in a nebula.

Am I insane? 

Being insane does not negate reality, only the perception of it.

  I want to believe.

    SRAM

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[b]JESUS IS GOD[/b]

Tholzel

Banned

From: Boston

Registered: 2004-03-20

Posts: 56

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

<Odds are that if life evolved here, that in the great vastness of the universe life evolve somewhere else as well.

But what are those odds exactly?
does 1 out of 10 suns hold a planet with life?
1 out of 1,000,000?
1 out of 10^100?

Thats why the search for life on mars is so essential.

If life independantly evolved on mars, then we can expect the universe to be filled to the brim with life. We can begin to speculate that life is not an oddity, or some fluke, but a natural and common progression across the universe.
>>

The above statistical method of wishing senient life into existance is completely baseless. Yet the results are so deliciously fecund, that all the BEM hopefuls (i.e., most astronomers) seize it with gusto--and carefully never subject it to any intellectual examination.

The only way to estimate the extent of life elsewhere is to describe how life arose on Earth, and see what the necessary series of events were that gave rise to "life." Then find planets that offer a similar route.

One note: Let's agree not to confuse the term "life" when we mean microbial "life," (to maximize its presence in the universe) and animal life, when we mean sentient (or at least precursors to sentient) life. The former is everywhere, the latter probably extremely rare.

When that sensible method is followed, the entire Drake equation goes out the window--as being not applicable to the question. And when we do examine the tortuous path of the development of animal life on Earth--how it required an anerobic beginning, switching over to oxygen based, the necessary types of other planets required for Earth to sustain this development, the necessity of an unusually large moon (to stabilize the seasons), etc., etc.--we see that the "statistics"of these new requierments make the likelihood of animal life on other planets vanishingly small--no matter how many billions of planets circle billions of suns.

So sorry!