Earth to...Earth? Are you there? 178
jasamaman writes "So far all the planets found outside our solar system have been gas giants. So they are not habitable, and couldn't really hold life as we know it. But "planet hunter" David Charbonneau is looking for another planet just like Earth, and claims that astronomers are "very close"."
How dose he know? (Score:5, Funny)
Did miss cleo tell him?
Re:How dose he know? (Score:2)
Well, the world now knows he likes brewing beer and put out to sea in his canoe. Hey, if he has sex in it, it's Miller time! :-P
Re:How dose he know? (Score:1, Funny)
Is that the old 'f*cking close to water' joke I see before me? Why, I think it is. Subtle one.
Completely ruined by me now though, sorry.
Re:How dose he know? (Score:5, Funny)
(just conjecture, btw)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:1)
(question caused by the use of toto as a dummy variable name)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:2)
Re:How does he know? (Score:2)
PQ: How long will it be before scientists might be able to study the atmospheres of Earth-like planets around other stars?
Charbonneau: That's much more difficult. We are close to being able to find Earth-like planets. But it may be decades before we are able to study their atmospheres.
Just close. How close? Well, if you're used to measuring distances in parsecs, 'close' can be quite a bit away, especially as the lad seems fairly young yet. He'll have plenty of time to paddle around, swigging brewskis and gazing at the sky. Good luck to him, I say!
Re:How does he know? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to kind of explain that to some of our slower readers... and this is in no way accurate, but just an example to help understand... if putting a coke bottle on the end of a telescope enables us to detect Earth-like planets, then we still have to search the skies with that telescope. That could take a long time, with the vastness of space.
Re:How does he know? (Score:1)
I mean, it's one thing to say that ``We will soon have what -may- allow us to detect Earth-like planets'', but can we really say that technology X will give us that ability until we actually detect such a planet with that specific technology?
While he's not saying that we'll find another habitable planet soon, it's still not a major statement, or really a valid claim. And it won't be until we actually -do- find one.
Re:How does he know? (Score:2)
In it Mayor says (my translation) "In 1995 the chances of finding an exoplanet were very small." And still he did. There is no guarantee to find an earth-sized exoplanet ever, but it is quite possible to find one within a year of being able to - or less.
And no, it is absolutely not "shooting in the dark" to say that we'll soon have the ability to detect earth size planets. If these devices work, we can find them if they are there. Just like we were able to find exoplanets in the mid-90's after developing the tools to do so, and just like we actually did.
Re:How does he know? (Score:2)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:1)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:1)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now, we could not detect our solar systems planets. There are 9 planets exerting their own oscillation into the sun's wobble. Perhaps he cannot do it now, but he knows what it would take to get there. Two years ago we all laughed and joked about IBM's process that would allow 5ghz machines. We all said "whatever, how the hell do they know, vaporware" Now we have seen 5 Ghz machines demonstrated, overclockers are hitting 3 Ghz easily and you should try not to discredit a geek in his field if you are out of yours.
Re:How dose he know? (Score:2)
You can't know you are very close to something unless you've done it before. I drive to work so I know when I am very close to work. We haven't found another planet like ours so how can he say we are close to finding another if he doesn't even know if one exists?
He's not trying to discredit, as I'm sure he is a very smart person, however that claim is poorly worded (unless of course he does know of another planet that noone else does).
Re:How dose he know? (Score:1)
Re:How dose he know...and isn't it done already? (Score:1)
> close" to discovering anything?
I could have sworn I read an article over a year ago where an Earth-type planet was found.
Re:How dose he know...and isn't it done already? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:How does he know...and isn't it done already? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:2)
1) The 'wobble' method. A planet in orbit around a star causes that star to counter rotate around the common centre of gravity. This only works for massive close in planets, but it will work for any orientation.
2) The eclipse method. A planet in orbit around the star will, if the orientation is right, periodically go between the star and us. This is obviously much more rare, but will detect any sized planet. This is how HD 209458's planet was detected.
Re:How does he know? (Score:2)
Re:How does he know? (Score:1)
Also, note the correct spelling of "does".
Re:How does he know? (Score:1)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:2, Insightful)
C'mon people. Work on your reading comprehension.
Re:How dose he know? (Score:1)
Re:How dose he know? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd love to, but my boss keeps telling me, "Put the grill-side of the hamburger FACE-UP on the bun."
He doesn't care about space telescopes, neither do the customers. But at $6/hr, I will eventually save up for a linux cluster and programming classes, which will help the distributed computing effort quite a bit.
So what if we did ....... (Score:3, Insightful)
I see the pointy that any further information about space (even out of our solar system) is useful, but what would we do if we found an earth-like planet?
It is expensive and time consuming to send a probe to Mars, would we really want to investigate this far off planet before we properly explore our own solar system? And put the money in when the results may only come back years after we are all dead? Nope.
Re:So what if we did ....... (Score:1)
What do we know about the deep oceans so far? We always find new nifty things at home (e.g. organisms that live in zones that would be toxic to us), haven't even figured out how to keep the planet's population happy, but still spend megabucks to fly into space.
So, yes, of course we're going to another planet - the grass may be greener there...
Re:So what if we did ....... (Score:2)
> system) is useful, but what would we do if we found an earth-like planet?
I'm not sure you grasp well the importance of the study of extra-solar star systems.
If I'm mistaken, my apologies, yet I'll try to refresh everyone's mind:
The difficulty in this field of Astrophysics (the birth of the Solar System) is not so much in finding a decent model, but rather in feeding the right parameters to the model.
At the moment, we have but one well-studied example of a star system, and it happens to be ours. This is not good enough for statistics, we *need* at least another one.
Many problems remain unanswered, such as the stability of the orbit of the Earth through the ages, and its remaining in the "Liquid Water Belt" around the Sun (even taking into account some retroactions with the GreenHouse effect cycles).
The models currently used have been tweaked to fit our only example, but remember that one of the first planet discovered couldn't even *exist* there according to the then current model (too big, too close, too fast. WTF is it doing here ? Back to the chalkboard, fellows...). Outside H2G2, that means the model has to be changed.
The more systems we find and study, the more we learn about our own system. Some of those will be very young ones, some will be older, and some of these two kinds may look even a bit like ours did (and will do), giving us some answers as to our past, and our future.
I'm a bit myopic, so I'll let you guys peek endlessly in the night. I'll tend the bar for you in the meantime.
U have to think different (Score:1)
Microlensing transit events (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Microlensing transit events (Score:1)
Being off-topic is a sin and methinks you just went off at a tangent.
(There should be a new moderation; "-1, Really bad pun" ;)
Re:Microlensing transit events (Score:1)
Re:Microlensing transit events (Score:1)
Can I have mod points now?
Re:Microlensing transit events (Score:1)
It is NOT by parallax! (Score:3, Informative)
Parallax determines the presence of an undetectable massive companion by the sinusoidal proper motion of the star system over a course of a few years. On the ground, you can do this for only a dozen of the closest stars (10 parsecs) or so.
Doppler reflex motion detects the companion by the Doppler shift in spectral lines in the parent star's spectrum as the planet/star orbit about their mutual centre of gravity. You can do this out to 100 parsecs or so.
HD209458 was a candidate from the Butler and Marcy Doppler survey that had a high inclination (edge-on) orbit. Brown and Charbonneau then did photometry to get the transit of the planet across the star's disk. Parallax did not come into it.
Dr Fish
Still a few years off. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still a few years off. (Score:1)
Re:Still a few years off. (Score:1)
The Darwin project will use the 'nulling interferometry' technique which not only detects planets circling the star, it will determine whether or not the planet is within the biosphere of the star and the chemical composition of it's atmosphere, if any.
With a huge amount of luck we might be able to detect an earth sized planet at the moment but not an earth-like planet.
Re:Still a few years off. (Score:1)
http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/catalog.html
Obviously (Score:1)
At the moment Hubble's visual resolution is great, but way too limited to analyze any distant planets the size of ours very far away.
Why we haven't found them yet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why we haven't found them yet (Score:1)
Inherent in his (and your) position is that gas giants are incapable of supporting life. We have a sample of 1 in a population of an almost infinite number of stars. How arrogant to believe that life MUST take on the form we are familiar with, based on such a limited sample.
When did science become so myopic?
Re:Why we haven't found them yet (Score:2)
This is a very poor observation. It's more like, "let's re-evaluate how much we are funding space, especially as our education system is crumbling, and decent health care not available to over 20% of our population". Space research should not be forgotten, but let's remember that gobs of money for space research is not a God give right, nor is it anywhere near the most important line item in our countries budget.
if we have to evacuate.. (Score:4, Funny)
Lets find 42 alternative planets earth
Re:if we have to evacuate.. (Score:1)
Re:if we have to evacuate.. (Score:1)
Argh! (Score:2)
Given that Scientists.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Another thing that might be vital to life on earth might simply be the fact that we have such a large moon acting as both a shield to a lot of asteroidal bombardment and as a planetary motor for tides
Re:Given that Scientists.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Given that Scientists.... (Score:3, Funny)
Now that is impressive! Guess we can throw away that whole conservation of matter thing. Maybe you meant that amino acids can be formed in a methane environment, but seeing that news is over 40 years old, you must be talking about some other "recent" discovery.
Older Article (Score:4, Informative)
Now whether this formed in a vacuum or not is a technicality. The scientists shone high level of UV light on a chunk of ice containing ammonia and methyl alchohol at a temperature of 4K and found traces of 3 amino acids had formed. The amino acids themselves formed from the surrounding ice slurry which was in a vacuum, ergo "amino acids are formed in a vacuum."
Charbonneau likes BEER! (Score:2, Insightful)
Charbonneau: I find home beer-brewing very satisfying.
David this one's on me!
http://beer.trash.net/beerget.php?yourbeer=101783
good luck on your quest buddy.
Close, but not that close (Score:5, Informative)
The real trick is finding the proper conditions. First, we need to find an extra-solar system in which Earth-sized planets exist. It's now believed that these are fairly few and far between. The reason is that a vast majority of the gas giant systems we've discovered so far have their gas giants in either really close orbits to their stars, or are highly eliptical with passes close to their stars. In these situations, Earth-like planets would likely be tossed into their stars, or more likely, tossed into open space, by the gravitational effect of the giants.
So, what you need is giants that live fairly far out (like Jupiter and Saturn). These appear to be about 1 out of 50+ systems. So, out of this 1-2% of systems, we then need to find ones with orbital planes that are parallel to our angle of view of those systems, and catch the Earth-sized planets passing in front of their stars.
Asking for all those conditions to line up is a pretty tall order, so it's unlikely we'll catch such an event in the next 5 years. My personal opinion. A large breakthrough may change that, and that's possible as well. After all, look at the discovery of extra-solar planets. It was a breakthrough idea that led to a sudden discovery of many of these systems, without a real technilogical breakthrough.
Re:Close, but not that close (Score:1)
While you're right about the relative numbers of systems with gas giants close to the star and others that have been found, it's not quite so easy to extrapolate that to say there are therefore few systems like ours. Systems with huge gas giants close to the star are a damn sight easier to find than any other - thus the predominance of those in the present results could just be that they're easier to see!
I'm not saying that there are a lot of systems like ours, just that we can't make that judgement yet.
It'll need more advanced space telescopes (Score:2)
The problem is that even with advancing telescope technology on ground-based telescopes they still can't completely overcome the refractive effects of the atmosphere, which reduces the quality of any picture taken even at high-altitude locations like Mauna Kea in Hawaii. With NASA working on the Next-Generation Space Telescope (NGST) and the European Space Agency working on something similar, we may just see after 2010 space-based telescopes with much higher resolving power than the Hubble Space Telescope; these might just be able to see fairly clearly the gas giant planet(s) orbiting nearby stars and could help deduce if there are rocky crust planets also orbiting those stars.
Re:Close, but not that close (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, bullshit.
The methods we have used until now to find extra-solar planets are extremely biased to find (a) large planets, (b) very close to the star and (c) in highly elliptical orbits. To make conclusions about the distribution of Earth-like planets from biased samples is foolhardy.
It's as if you decided to count species by sitting in one place in the woods looking through a pair of binoculars. Sure, you would see all of the large mammals and birds that happened by, but you'd miss the vast majority of species by seeing hardly any of the incects (maybe a few fireflies if you were savvy enough to recognize them as animals) and none of the water dwelling animals. You conclusions about the distribution of species would be worthless because you saw only the easiest animals to spot.
Re:Close, but not that close (Score:1)
Isn't this related to the gravitational method that we are using? I mean, isn't the dopplar shift signifigantly easier to detect in the case that the large planet is nearby the star, or that its orbit is eliptical? There's plenty of stars where we *HAVEN'T* found any planets, not because they do not exist there (though they very well may not) but that they are in a configuration that does not lend itself easily detected with this method. As far as I know, it would be very difficult to detect a system exactly like ours from any signifigant distance using current methods (the gas giants are very far out, and would probably require years of constant observation as it takes forever for Jupiter, Saturn, etc to go around the sun).
That's the biggest problems with basing any life-away-from-earth arguments on current exoplanetary data, it's very very very scewed because of the limitations of our current resources and methods. Perhaps when the Terrestrial Planet Finder [slashdot.org] comes along, we might be able to find some REAL answers about this.
(Note: I agree fully that the systems found thusfar would not be very good for habitable planets, with the exceptions of the planets being moons of the gas giants, which does present its own unique difficulties for life).
Answer: Look at 1000000 stars at the same time (Score:2)
A small probability multiplied by lots of stars all at once = a reasonable chance.
A second selection effect also helps you. All the orbits of the planets in our solar system all lie in a common plane called the ecliptic. It's a result of the conservation of angular momentum.
So the trick is, find a star with transiting hot jupiters, then intensively monitor that system to find the smaller signals of smaller diameter earth-sized planets, as chances are that they will also transit the star's disk!
Dr Fish
Astronomers very close? (Score:5, Funny)
That's true. Astronomers are very close. However, where the hell all these planets are is quite another matter...
Cheers,
Ian
receptions (Score:2, Funny)
Re:receptions (Score:1)
egotistic... (Score:1, Insightful)
Why only carbon based life (Score:2, Interesting)
2) We do not know how non-carbon based life works, develops or even if it is possible. We don't have experimental evidence.
3) Developing a scientific hypothesis requires that you know what you are talking about and have at least some experimental evidence that suggests that we need another hypothesis.
Hence, we cannot speculate on the non-carbon based life -- at least scientifically.
Re:Why only carbon based life (Score:2)
We have the information concerning Carbon based life. Therefore our hypothesis is that all life is Carbon Based. Now we have to go try to prove/disprove that. As soon as we find some life that isn't carbon based then we'll revise the hypothesis. So like you said, Developing a scientific hypothesis requires that you know what you are talking about and have at least some experimental evidence that suggests that we need another hypothesis. At the moment we don't have any evidence that suggests we need a hypothesis other than 'All life is Carbon based.' so that's our hypothesis.
Kintanon
Re:egotistic... (Score:5, Interesting)
if you have any plausible suggestions, by all means, make them. But till then, the only way I can see to get life is carbon-based life forms. Yeah, I could be wrong, but I'm betting on other life forms also being carbon-based. Not proof, but strikes me as a good bet.
Re:egotistic... (Score:1)
Re:egotistic... (Score:1)
Close but no cigar..... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Perhaps the teraforming of venus or mars would be a more practical consideration for the next 100 years.
What the heck does it matter if we find a planet in say , we misses it surrounding Alpha Centarui, our closest stellar neighbor.
We pretty much know there out there , law of averages dictates it. WE (earth), is not an cannot be alone in it planetary type classification, to think so would align you mental reasoning with that of the clergy in the middle ages saying the frigging sun revolved around the earth.
So what dose it matter in the short term if there is another planet even within 20 light years, a very short distance I might add, Propulsion at near the speed of light is fantasy for at least another century. OR until artificial gravity can be harnessed (no not for propulsion but for keeping the people inside from turning to goooo on acceleration a deceleration), add to that the fact space isnt a vacum, a craft travelling at NOV (near optic velocities) well lets say there are more issues than you can imagine if you havent studied the problem.
So, what are we left with ?
Venus and Mars, mars is cold and dry. May be a little watter but its still going to be cold , rocord equator temperatures are not even comfy, there isnt enough CO2 at the caps to produce an atmosphere of enough density for a greenhouse effect to occur.
SO we have venus, wet, HOT as hell and very active. Remeber the percipitation experiments in chemistry class ? How about coming up with a plan to do just tha to the sulfur in the atmosphere ? Man what I wouldnt give to have about 2 liters of venutian atmosphere to play with. Now granted even after it would take some time for the planet to cool even after reduced its atmosphere. And the place would forever smell like rotten eggs, but more habbitable perhaps than mars, at least you have PLENTY of water, albeit bound in sulfuric acids at the moment.
Sooo earth earth where are you ? Does it really matter ? What next drawings of what life may be like on theat planet ? (Remeber the wood carvign of the men on the moon a guy claimed to see with wings and all)
Re:Close but no cigar..... (Score:2)
It'd take considerably longer than 100 years to terraform either planet. And that's ignoring the little issue that we haven't even visited either one with anything but robotic probes still.
The lack of fast space travel hampers terraforming efforts as well, since any reasonable plan involves mining the rest of the solar system for necessary components - nitrogen and ice water for Mars, who-knows-what for Venus (and Venus is further from the resources in general, although that's entirely dependant on orbital mechanics really).
In any case, most "realistic" terraforming timelines are centuries long. And even if we had the technology to do it (we don't), there's a minor issue of finding funding for that long of a period and being able to actually come out ahead of the game after compound interest has taken it's toll (contemplate 1 trillion US dollars at even 1% interest for 500 years - it requires a 14740.30% rate of return).
Yes, we have absolutely no way to populate another world right now either. But the incentives to go there would be considerably higher than trying to terraform a neighboring planet. If nothing else, a fly-by probe moving at a considerably fraction of c could visit a solar system ~20 light years away in under a century. If it has the right equipment it should be able to tell us if there's life on that planet. That would go a long way toward answering the "are we alone?" question.
Of course, there's the issue with financial backing there too, and the minor nit that we have absolutely no infrastructure (particularly solar power stations) to do this either, but if you want to put an somewhat arbitrary 100 year limit on goals, then a probe flyby of a nearby earth-like planet seems more realistic to me than terraforming.
Re:Close but no cigar..... (Score:1)
Re:Close but no cigar..... (Score:1)
Yes, to go that far in time requires ~30% c, but that's theoretically possible with probes - acceleration gravities aren't an issue in general.
Re:Close but no cigar..... (Score:1)
That statement is only correct if you assume molecular nanotechnology is not feasible. If it is feasible you can completely dismantle Venus or Mars in less than 100 years (Ref here [aeiveos.com]). If you can completely dismantle them, I would argue its highly probable that you could terraform them as well. But it makes no sense to leave the material at the bottom of gravity wells when you could use it for advanced satellites as I discuss here [aeiveos.com] for example.
life as we know it (Score:2)
Re:life as we know it (Score:2)
Bit defeatist, isn't it? How do you know that we don't know anything?
I'm all for humility in science, but abject grovelling seems a bit counterproductive.
Cheers,
Ian
I lie, actually it was 1976 (Score:2)
The eddy diffusion coefficient is estimated as a function of altitude, separately for the Jovian troposphere and mesosphere. Complex organic molecules produced by the Ly alpha photolysis of methane may possibly be the absorbers in the lower mesosphere which account for the low reflectivity of Jupiter in the near ultraviolet. The optical frequency chromophores are localized at or just below the Jovian tropopause. Candidate chromophore molecules must satisfy the condition that they are produced sufficiently rapidly that convective pyrolysis maintains the observed chromophore optical depth. The condition is satisfied if complex organic chromophores are produced with high quantum yield by NH3 photolysis at less than 2,300 A. Jovian photoautotrophs in the upper troposphere satisfy this condition well, even with fast circulation,
assuming only biochemical properties of comparable terrestrial organisms. An organism in the form of a thin, gas filled balloon can grow fast enough to replicate if (1) it can survive at the low mesospheric temperatures, or if (2) photosynthesis occurs in the troposphere.
If anyone has access to the full paper I would love a copy.
so lets say we find a planet a few parsecs away... (Score:1)
Gas Giants (Score:2)
Or some baddies in a SciFi series, "The Attack of the red Gas Giants!!"
Great, we're cephalopods (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen lots of Science Fiction movies about aliens that go from planet to planet, soaking up the natural resources of each, conquering and destroying them (making them uninhabitable), and moving on. Anyone else ever think we're the aliens?
I mean, we've already screwed up this one, and now rather than fix it (because wanting to do that makes you a "tree hugger") we're going after another. I can't say I'm against it, but it's just...creepy.
Re:Great, we're cephalopods (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember that the sci-fi movies about which you write were written by humans, and no doubt the authors were trying to make a point about human behavior. Since, by your admission, the activity of serially raping planets for their resources is now associated with nasty aliens in your mind, it looks like the authors have succeeded in making their point.
Re:Great, we're cephalopods (Score:1)
I'd wager that the various volcanoes erupting have casued more damage to the Earth than Humans have.
Re:Great, we're cephalopods (Score:2)
So, an oil tanker spilling all over and killing animals, plants and polluting water doesn't harm the environment? Factories spewing out carcinogenic pollutants doesn't hurt anything? Smog from our cars, pesticides killing plants, cutting down rainforests and stripping the land to put up more buildings are all neutral?
I'm not saying we're (definitely) the cause of global warming, but I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest we've broken plenty.
how can they be close? (Score:1)
Re:how can they be close? (Score:1)
I dont see how you can be close to finding anything. Its like my car keys, or that odd sock. I know its in my apt someplace, but i've either found them or i haven't. Maybe i should take a hint from them, look for an exact duplicate of my car keys!
The interview was very bad. No real interesting questions asked/answered.
But why are at least 15 posters here nit picking about wording?
You either HAVE found it or you HAVE not, right! And? You can not say you are clsoe to find them when you smell the bad odeur of that old sock? Its either below you or right or left or behind or in front. Make step now. Either it smells stronger and you know "I'm close to find it" or it smells weaker and you know "I WAS close to find it".
The Astronomer just wanted to say: NOW we have the technology AND the installation base of telescopes and the interesting targets prepared that we only need the luck to be at the right time observing the right spot.
10 Years ago, we simply lacked:
a) the (installed, ready to use) technology
b) the knowledge wich suns to observe
For a):
now we have an improved Hubbel and more sattelites and more optical (atmospheric disturbtion robust) telescopes
For b):
Intersting suns are found by other observations, e.g. Jupiter sized planets in circular orbits around sun like stars
We simply now know where and how to look.
So its realy only a matter of time and luck to find one.
And I would bet that astronomer has a very good target in preparation and likes to observe it but does not like to disclouse it to early(what a cheering if he failed to find one
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
current methods dont see earth-size (Score:3, Informative)
Another method is to look for eclipses of planets across the stars. This presumes (a) you are seeing another solar system edge-on, (b) you are lucky to catch the
A third method is infra-red, which can see earth-size in newly forming planetary system dust-clouds. These would be too young and unstable to have evolved intelligent life on their own, but could be colony sites.
Looking for love in all the wrong places (Score:2)
What does he mean by Earth-like? A small planet with an atmosphere? With oxygen and carbon dioxide in its atmophere? With a temperature range that might permit life? With oceans and landmasses?
By some definition of Earth-like, it wasn't long ago in geological time that Earth wasn't very Earth-like. And on the same time scale, it won't be Earth-like for long.
The higher purpose of scientific exploration is to find something weird, not something familiar. The more unEarth-like, the better. A discovery that confirms a theory is useful but a discovery that challenges a theory is the name of the game.
life as we know it (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe they just pick who they want to talk to.
Re:life as we know it (Score:1)
maybe... or the other way round?
Maybe they just pick who they want to talk to.
i agree heartily to what you say, but you have to set a viewpoint to get a perspective... you are always on the right side of argument when you say "everything's relative", but you don't get anywhere with it...
so: let them(incredibly inaccurate) pick whatever they want to... it's natural to search for familiar things in an unknown place.
don't get me wrong, i am doing the same thing all the time. but this is what i have learned so far...
Re:life as we know it (Score:1)
Re:life as we know it (Score:1)
i think, there is plenty of knowledge in it, as well as there is in the bible... anyway, it is completely useless to the majority of "modern" humans, because nearly all of it is written in metaphors and parables... too much for mr. ordinary, i think...
it is a pity to lose(it will get lost) its important content(how to live a proper, healthy, natural, satisfying life) just because the "medium" doesn't appeal anymore...
whatever, we are getting off topic here...
Finding Earth-like Planets (Score:2)
Chris Beckenbach
Is this really a good idea? (Score:1)
"Attention highly developed races!!! Now hear this!! Are you looking for new world's to conquer? Have you depleted all the natural resources on your homeworld? If so, why not come conquer us? We are very primitive. Still using radio and analog tranismission signals. Just follow this signal back to our homeworld."
Now that I am on the subject. This goes for AI development too. There is a ton of cash spent each year on Articial Intelligence. Didn't anyone watch Terminator or the Matrix? Even if some computer whiz figures out AI, the best he can hope for is that he only coded himself out of a job.
Too Late to worry about it (Score:2)
So, what does this mean? (Score:1)
More damn Linux distributions.
Another earth - why not send Katz? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Another earth - why not send Katz? (Score:2)
Get ready for articles with words such as "Earth-centric", "Extra-terrestrial Imperialism" and "Trans-globalism"
coming up next on planet planet... (Score:3, Funny)
No... (Score:1)
Quit talking out of uranus... (Score:1)
I did do my own research and I dug up this [skepticnews.com]. Please stop filling the world with crap.