NASA: There are 17 BEEELLION Earth-sized worlds in Milky Way Scientists scrubbing up data about starlight from NASA's Kepler telescope have used it to estimate that there are 17 billion other Earths in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Artist's impression of the the variety of planets being detected by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, Credit: C. Pulliam & D. Aguilar (CfA) Artist's impression of the …
But until we actually get out there and start exploring other star systems to confirm the existence of these planets, most of this information is just guesswork; an expert guess perhaps, but still just a guess.
(whilst typing the above, I somehow mistyped "exploring" as "exploiting" - or perhaps it wasn't such a mistype after all?)
What I understood from the article is that 'Earth-sized' is actually being used for 'Earth-like'.
However even taking very low probabilities that such a planet is not only in the 'liquid-water' zone but has a reasonable temperature (<40 C), has actual water on the surface, can support an atmosphere (or even HAS an atmosphere) etc etc, it's a good bet that there are a handful of these planets that are Earth-like enough for humans to live there some time in the (VERY) far future.
"until we actually get out there and start exploring other star systems "
Right now we can barely get into LEO and the fastest and furtest probes we have ever sent have just taken 60-odd years to reach the edge of our solar system. As I said, VERY far future
@James Micallef, the Voyager probes were launched in late 1977, so 35 years, not 60!
There is work underway for higher powered ION engined probes that could achieve very high speeds.
Theoretically, 10% speed of light.
Although I agree that getting an extra-solar planet in a reasonable time frame is well beyond our current technical capabilities.
I would bet the odds of an earth-size(ish) planet within the habitable zone having other prerequisites for live are probably better than 1 in 17 billion, so it is still interesting news.
I thought nuclear explosion based propulsion was a passable solution, until we figure out how to bend spacetime to our will.
Seriously, why can't we just build a proper spaceship? Why are we mucking around with the useless ISS? The people who designed these things should have thought big from the get-go. I see we will shortly be sending men into space for a year long investigation into the effects of weightlessness, but why?!! When we build the spaceship it will have a friggin rotating bit (or at least it would have if I built it). Has nobody in NASA seen 2001 or read ANY science fiction? From the very first shuttle launch THIS is what we should have been building. It could have pod bays, an insane computer, the works!
If we put our minds to it we could build a spaceship now (or a powered habitat), like the bionic man, we have the technology! The only thing we can't do is propulsion, that IS a tricky one.
The sad fact is that most science fiction neglects to take into account (heh) the existence of accountants. Once you factor them in, 2001: A Space Odyssey becomes a 2 1/2 hour spreadsheet presentation about whether HAL really needs all of those memory banks, and that by downsizing the escape pods (and associated room) the total project cost can be reduced by 0.3%.
"planets with a orbit-time of less than 150 days are most probably too close to their star, and therefore too hot, to be anything earth-like"
That holds true only if one makes a number of assumptions about the parent star and the system as a whole.
For example, Gliese 163c (a 'super Earth') has an orbital period of around 26 days, but may have a surface temperature of only about 60C. (Although throwing red dwarfs into the mix brings other problems to consider in this respect).
Nah, but bored beyond belief. So will have to route through the old philosophies on the matter.
a) Yes there are 'X' number of Earth like worlds out there.
b) Some of those worlds out there will have 'intelligent/technically aggressive' life like aspects to them.
c) Space is really big
d) Some of those life forms getting in contact with us, (or coming here), will probably be wanting to take our corn and bum rape us.
e) There are already people here on this planet who will want to take your corn and bum rape you.
f) So what!
But, what if instead of Gorn, Talshyar, Naussicans, etc, they are a bunch of Organians? They might sport weed of a higher grade than San Fransideshow. Or, what if they rendered war to cleaner from bloody via use of Disintegration Chambers... Or, no matter their harvesting or tech superiority, suppose they have vastly greater wit, humor, and insult skills? Or, suppose they can supply a steady, sultry stream of age-legal Orion slave girls and boys?
"funny how all the planets are round isn't it. Almost like they were designed...
if richard dorkins was right planets should have evolved into more complex shapes by now"
Having read other Mr. NomNomNom's posts, I'd bet my money on the post being a joke, and even found it funny.
Out of pure curiosity, please upvote this post if you found the post funny, downvote if you didn't.
Given that, to me, NomNomNom appeared to be taking the piss out of young-earth creationists, I would surmise that those who downvoted him/her:
1) Were born without sarcasm detection mechanisms; or
2) Possess a sense of humour incapable of comprehending much beyond knock-knock jokes; or
3) Are themselves young-earth creationists who don't appreciate people taking the piss...
I personally found NomNomNom's post sufficiently amusing to bring a smile to my face, although it's admittedly not exactly side-splitting material. Doesn't justify a downvote in my book though!
Statistics, it would seem, points to our eventually encountering intelligent life somewhere out there. We therefor need to establish some criteria for who our eventual ambassadors will be. This is easiest accomplished through elimination. For example, if you have ever posted on this site, humanity would be better off keeping you away from our eventual alien overlords.
I suspect you've never actually been hungry for any length of time, Fibbles. If you had been, you wouldn't joke about it.
Most of the Western world eats because society says "must eat on schedule", even if the person in question isn't actually in need of fuel. The results are obvious ... Alas.
"@jake - And how many billion humans are going hungry today?"
Science and the curiosity that comes with it is never a wasted pursuit! Devices, conducted research, and knowledge from NASA (and other large research agencies) have helped our civilisation in numerous ways!
If you are going to comment about how money could be used to help those below the poverty line or in the third world then perhaps you should start with celebrity blogs and tabloid news sites and not on stories about genuine scientific knowledge and discovery.
earthlike? ...
nasa's pr department seems so focused on fulfilling american trekie sci-fi expectations and hence securing funding that it distorts it own findings beyond recognition, remember the mars fossils?
to call a rocky planet in a similar orbit of mercury earth-like is to call jack the ripper jesus like, yes compared to a deep sea squid they are similar but by reasonable understanding of the english language its ridiculous.
its an intentional and cynical attempt to distort and deceive, it only serves to devalue the very real and very important science they are actually doing and i wish they would stop.
So the chances are excellent of there being alternate Earth ruled by sexually curious Amazon women? Sign me up for the Space Exploration Corps now!
On the other hand, I have to say I feel a little rejected that there are 17 billion Earths out there, and nobody wants to talk to us.... So what, there's the Amazon women Earth, probably all those Star Trek "Still ruled by Roman Empire/Nazis/bad Chicago gangster stereotype Earths" and we are the "fat kid wearing glasses during football team choice" Earth? Boy, don't I feel insignificant!!
Every now and then NASA blows a socket in the effort to get funding and funding support. "look, we found an rock from Mars" - really, then explain the process of how it escaped Mars gravity, assumed a perfect decaying solar orbit and hit here considering there are no active Mars vocanoes and we have never retrieved a rock from Mars to actually compare it to???
Last week was... "look, we foud a rock from Mars with water in it" - really, again no supporting evidence.
Today there and billions and billions of earth type planets - really? Show me a picture, show me a spectrograph that includes only that planet, show me evidence for just one... oh, and while you're at it publish your 'earth like' criteria because I would be fewer that two could support human life.
NASA has wasted billions of dollars in faux science to get funding on more faux science. Why not do some real science like mining the moon? Why not work on a real L1 space station? Why not work on a real strategy and infrastructiure for 2036? Nope, this NASA generation is bean counters and sesame street graduates with a 20 second attention span.
Move along, nothing to see here....
Actually, no. Yes asteroids do hit ocassionally but the odds of ejecta breaking eascape velocity, rising past the gravitation fields of the Martian moons, navigating the asteroid fields without being captured but any of the debris gravitational fields, escaping the gravity sweep of earth's moon then impacting earth, are well, astronomical( as in totaly impossible). Even more amazing is that somhow we 'know' that this rock is from Mars while having no samples to compare it too. If you believe all of that can happen then you will have disappointments in this life. Remember, NASA still can't find all of their moon rocks - so how can you trust them to use proper dillegence in classifing a rock from space? Heck, they even deleted the original moon landing telemetry( video) so they could reuse the tapes. No, they chose the classification that gave the best chance at renewed funding.
Thumbs up for that.
Being selfish ba**ards the human race could work the problem in reverse.
Concentrate only on suns that are stable enough to allow Earth like planets to form in the liquid water zone of their orbits with a surface gravity <5g (at least one is known to exist already)
There has to be be something worth visiting when you get there to make the journey (and to justify it in the first place). Forget distance. Just how many Earths are there in this galaxy?
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