HAD IT with Planet Earth? There are 12 alien worlds left to try out Space boffins have now identified more than 1,000 planets orbiting distant stars – with 12 of them potentially suitable for human life. There are now known to be 1,010 exoplanets, which is the name given to planets circling other suns. Around 1 per cent of these are so-called "Goldilocks planets", which are situated in the …
So we can go on wasting our own earth 'cause there are exoplanets out there waiting to be invaded by human pest?
That makes me wonder, maybe we, i.e. life on earth, are only a bloody von Neumann probe. Humans would hardly survive a trip to one of those exoplanets but enough information might get there to pollute the environment and start a new form of deadly life. (And maybe I'm just a bit miserable today.)
@JustaKOS, I agree, I don't think earth is the only place that developed life but it's not very likely that those few places we can spot from here did the same. In that sense, no harm be done. But what's the point of spreading our life beyond earth? Is it the pursuit of immortality? (This is not a question of miserable me, I seriously wonder why we would/should do that.)
I'm thinking more of life in general. I find Life and what it does fascinating, and I think it would be a shame if it turned out to be extremely rare in the galaxy.
I don't see any specific value in spreading our species throughout the galaxy, but if it incidentally spread a whole load of other species, then maybe there would be some point to it.
Or not - I guess it depends on whether you view life as being anything special.
Good point. I do see life - in general - as something very special. It's fragile and limited to quite a short time frame (in matters of the universe) before it all gets swallowed by the sun.
For me, spreading life (depending on the point of view it can also be called pollution, contamination, etc.) boils down to two questions. The first, rather philosophic question is whether we have the right to spread life further than our earth (or solar system).
As I hinted earlier, I don't mind seeding dead planets. But even if it's only some native bacteria and such living there I think we should stay far away and not risking to kill them with our own. And this brings me to the second question: how rare is life in the universe, i.e. how many of the planets in habitable zones have developed some form of life?
I'm inclined to agree with your sentiments : spreading life is a good thing, but not necessarily at the expense of what is already there.
It seems to me that the philosophical question ("do we have the right?") only arises where life already exists. Where it does already exist, I would hope we would tread carefully, if at all.
...would to some extent make up for trashing it here. Only if we avoid spreading the seed for human life, too ;-) </sarcasm>
But, did we really trash up here? I do believe that we should limit our impact on earth as much as possible which we certainly don't. Insofar we did and do trash it up. But in the end, nature seems to cope quite well with mankind. And what we are concerned with is not so much some extinct species. What we are really concerned with is nature's impact on us. For example, global warming/climate change or deceasing bees? Scary thing 'cause we as mankind might be in trouble. Nature will cope with it as it did in the past. With or without humanity, nature doesn't really care.
"what's the point of spreading our life beyond earth?"
"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."
- Douglas Adams - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Alternatively:
"[T]here's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and - all of this - all of this - was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars."
- Commander Sinclair - Babylon 5
All astronomers can see are the size of the planets and the approximate distance from their suns. If a planet is at a distance that allows liquid water and it is not gas-giant sized, it is deemed potentially habitable. But it takes more than potential liquid water to make a planet habitable: It takes real liquid water and an atmosphere with sufficient oxygen. The latter implies life, as free oxygen reacts with other substances so it needs to be continually renewed, and life is AFAIK the only realistic mechanism for that.
However, discounting gas giants ignores the possibility of habitable moons orbiting these. A large fraction of known exoplanets are much more massive than Jupiter and many of these are quite close tor their stars. Probably not because they really are more common, but because such planets are easy to find because they make the stars wobble visibly. Some of these super-massive planets are in the "Goldilocks zone", where liquid water may exist. While the planets themselves are hostile to human life, they may have Earth-sized moons that could be habitable. In our own solar system, gas giants have sizeable moons, though none are near Earth size. But it is not unreasonable that larger planets may have larger moons, so moons of super-massive planets may be a better bet for habitation than planets. A single super-massive planet may even have several habitable moons.
But in a sense just the fact we know have a number of how many planets (out of a number of solar systems) is a key piece of data.
Of course if we want to visit them (even by probe) it'll have to be either amazingly cheap* (so people won't complain about the cost) or amazingly prolific, so all the eggs are not in one basket.
*Cheap is relative. The James Webb Space Telescope is already up to about $8Bn and still rising. I'd suggest $1Bn in this context would be "cheap."
Well done so far. Although I'd still prioritize the NEO watch over the exo planet search I think both are important if the Human race wants a long term future (Millions of years, not centuries).
Does anyone know how many Earth gravities a human can continuously withstand. Jet pilots and F1 drivers regularly experience 5-6G although not continuously.
I'm thinking an Earth like planet with lots of Dwarf like humanoids, short but built like brick sh*t houses!!
Or lots of Jelly fish !!
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