Potential ALIEN LIFE habitats FOUND ON MOONS International boffins, poring over the results from mighty telescopes both spacegoing and ground-bound, say they have identified at least 16 potentially habitable Earth-like planets orbiting other stars: and at least 30 potentially habitable moons along the lines of the scientifictional Endor and Pandora, orbiting planets in …
Think about it. A bunch of extremely odd beings - bouncy gas giants, a neat-freak with affinity for rocks, an intelligent, graceful flower creature, some dissonant flashers with three genders (Un, Ooo and Eee) not to mention the tiny red overlords (welcome!) with their near-identical tiny blue neighbours, and the intelligent transports, all taking place in the night sky? Some classic Sci-fi tropes in there...
What are the Beeb trying to prepare our youngest generation for, I wonder?
yes, yes it is.
Essentially the scientists are saying, "hay we are 99.99% sure there is life on earth and some of it might even be intelligent, so if we look at other planets and astral body's that are similar to earth then there is a chance that there may also be life on them"
This is better than saying, "hey we have found a million planets all with vstly different climates and conditions to our own, by some magnificent flights of the imagination we think they might be able to sustain some kind of life form that is nothing like anything we have any evidence for"
I think the key phrase in the article is "along Earthly lines".
Let's face it, if you start considering not-Earthling-like life then we have to take a good long look at every single exoplanet, not to mention searching stars for potential hydrogen based life. It's just easier to narrow the parameters down to looking for other carbon based life that breaths oxygen.
Who defines life as that? There is no widely acknowledged shared definition of the term. Some people don't even define biological viruses as life, merely as replicators, so saying self-copying computer programs are alive seems to be a stretch to the point of romanticism. The mighty Wikipedia lists 7 characteristic of living things; only one or perhaps two are shared by computer viruses.
Yeah, that part's pretty hard to imagine - Plasma's a bit warmer than that.
The issue with "other forms of life" is one of chemistry, really. You need to base it around some fairly common element - so nothing heavier than Iron (the element at which nuclear fusion gives up), and the lighter the better.
You want something which is able to bond to as much as possible - Carbon and Silicon are the two good examples there. You then need to work your way up from that:
Hydrogen will almost certainly be involved, as it's so damn common
Nitrogen isn't too useful as it's pretty unreactive chemically in its standard (N2) form (note that 80% of the atmosphere is Nitrogen, and it does bugger all most of the time)
You then need to consider energy requirements (photosynthesis, geothermal, or "eating stuff" are the three I can think of), and so on...
...know that by saying 'oh we are very certain to find extra-terrestrial this time!' and pleading publically and garnering headlines all around the world is sure to gain financial support for them to continue making a living. That's what I call...smart!
Moving along. Do we really need to prove that life exists elsewhere? How does it benefit us and why should it matter? We can't even get along with our fellow lifeform species where we want to blow eachother up, exploit one another for our own selfish benefit, to control and exploit every other lifeform and natural resource on our planet for our own selfish gain and benefit. We do all of this without thought or consideration believing that we have a right to exploit everything that we come into contact with, and that we deserve to survive and exist above everthing else in nature. So if we find life elsewhere, do we then automatically have the right to profit, tamper with, exploit and destroy it too?
Humans. I'm ashamed to be part of our disgusting race.
The really advanced civilisations gave up on planets long ago except for tourism and a few scientists doing biological research.
Natural biospheres are just /so/ delicate and unpredictable. One minute you're being attacked by a tiger, the next minute some busybody says you've just destroyed the last of their habitat. In space we can control things and if a reactor starts to go wobbly you just jettison it out the door and build another one :)
Agree with 'Anonymous Coward'
It's infuriating, that's all, is there a new editor who sometimes get his caps lock stuck on or sees the need to write headlines half in sentence case and half not?
"You know what really grinds my gears..."
Off course there is life out there.
We just have to exceed the speed of light to get there faster than 36
years. In a few decades it will be done.
But not untill my philosophical theory gets investigated.
I am pretty sure that it is wrong, but it might get somebody to think.
What if the speed of light varies through time and space?That would
create some interesting theory.
At least I think so.
Antimatter is the mind and consciousness of all living entities.
You are your own universe.
Reality is where the minds (antimatter) meets the physical universe.
Interested? Then read my philosophical multiverse theory.
Google crestroyer theory, and find it instantly.
http://crestroyertheory.com/the-theory/
I'm afraid I had the same reaction as Bruce. After listening to the news all day, my thoughts were of us eventually racing off to another celestial body where we could dig up half a planet for resources, extinguish half the species, acidify any oceans, etc. That's after we kill half the inhabitants if they don't convert to our religion of the moment.
Where's Tiny Tim when I need him?
<----------------- burning xmas tree
Off course there is life out there.
We just have to exceed the speed of light to get there faster than 36
years. In a few decades it will be done.
But not untill my philosophical theory gets investigated.
I am pretty sure that it is wrong, but it might get somebody to think.
What if the speed of light varies through time and space?That would
create some interesting theory.
At least I think so.
Antimatter is the mind and consciousness of all living entities.
You are your own universe.
Reality is where the minds (antimatter) meets the physical universe.
Interested? Then read my philosophical multiverse theory.
Google crestroyer theory, and find it instantly.
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